How to Keep Weeds Out Of Your Vegetable Garden.

Today a neighbor asked me how to keep weeds out of his vegetable garden.

It is important to keep weeds out of your vegetable garden because weeds will deplete the soil’s nutrients—the ones meant for your veggies.

My favorite organic and easy way to keep weeds out of the garden is with newspaper and mulch. Hey, you’re recycling while providing a bit of light reading for your plants.

The first step is to remove all unwanted vegetation from the area that you want to keep weed-free. You can do this by using a sharp hoe and cutting the roots right below the soil. Or you can just yank them out by hand. It depends on how many weeds you have.

After all the weeds and unwanted plants are removed, put down a layer of newspaper about eight sheets thick, and completely cover the area. The newspaper will keep the sun from reaching the soil, therefore preventing weed germination.

Then simply place mulch, such as chips, over the newspaper. This looks a lot better then the classified section laying there in the middle your garden, plus, you’ll need the weight on the paper so it doesn’t end up in your neighbor’s yard.

The newspaper will eventually decompose, but in the meantime—no weeds.

Comments

[Lydia (The Perfect Pantry)]

Does the newspaper last for more than one growing season? Here in New England, with brutal winters, I think the newspaper would decompose every winter and would need to be replenished each spring?

[Kalyn]

My brother-in-law swears by this method, but I haven't tried it.

[chigiy]

Lydia,
I would change it out every year, every spring, every time you replant your veggie garden. It's usually best to move things around anyhow.

Kayln,
I don't know anyone that does it but it's supposed to work great.

[jgh]

I've just been reading a great book about this called "Lasagna Gardening". She advocates adding compost, peat moss and aged manure in layers on top of the paper too when the beds are just starting out. Since I don't have peat or manure hanging around, I'm wondering how costly this would be and would prefer to use your method with just the newspaper and mulch (I use wood chips).

We've used this method in our school garden with lots of success.

Those orange roses are INCREDIBLE!!

[Annie in Austin]

Chigiy, it sort of worked in a sheltered part of our previous Illinois garden but it's too dry and windy in Austin. Unless you piled the mulch on really deep, the wind could still slide under and flip the papers up and they never seemed to decompose, just break into pieces that flew around like ugly leaves.

But it probably works in some climates.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

[Muum]

this is my second year with newspaper/mulch as a weed barrier, I LOVe it!