Triple Protection Weed Barrier

After spending days ripping knee high grass, thistles and salmon berry bushes out that had taken over my pathway behind my bean netting I decided that I would never do it again! It was time to take action and bar those weeds from ever returning *grin*.

I knew my obsession with reading tons of newspapers would come in handy one day! LOL. Armed with a wheelbarrow full of them we headed out to the garden to get started. Newsprint makes an excellent weed barrier as it smothers anything that is trying to grow up from underneath and over the years it biodegrades and turns to mulch for the soil.

Just make sure that you use only the newsprint and not any of the glossy and shiny flyers. They're an entirely different breed of paper and aren't good for this sort of project :) We layered the papers over top of each other multiple times all the way down the path creating a thick cushion of newsprint over the soil.

I'm not taking any chances though with rogue weeds popping up through any cracks in the paper so I'm upping my efforts in weed control and putting down a layer of landscaping felt on top of the papers to *grin*. We have scads of left over fencing wire from the last time we fenced so I got hubby to snip off short lengths of it that I could fashion it into staples for holding down the landscaping felt :)

You can see above how I bent the wire into a U shape and then we poked it through the landscaping felt and into the soil so that it securely holds the felt in place and now it won't slip around on the newspaper. It's also great for getting the felt nice and taut for a smooth surface :)

Now I know you probably thought I was done after laying down 2 layers of newspaper and felt, but heck no I'm going for more protection yet! LOL. We hitched on the horse trailer and headed off to grab some bark mulch. Off we go with the trailer in tow *grin*.

You've just got to love this stuff! It's a by product from the peeler that works nearby so there's always tons of it and it is fabulous for pathways, mulching your garden to help it retain moisture during the dry season of summer and it's a great weed deterrent as well :)

Just make sure you don't use Cedar!! It is poisonous to many plants and you don't want to kill your pretty blooms or vegetables.

Ahh, finished. Triple protection from the weeds that should last for a couple of years before I need to top dress it again with more mulch :) Now let's get planting!

~ Rosina