sisquatch
Full Member
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:52 pm
Location: Wichita, KS

weed mats

hi I am pretty new to gardening, and I am wondering if someone can give me some tips.
we are wanting to use a weed mat in our vegetable garden this year and after looking around in the stores we discovered that the weed mats for flower gardens are much cheaper than the ones for vegetable gardens. so I'm wondering what the big difference in the two is? would it be okay to use a flower garden weed mat in my vegetable garden?

thanks :)

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rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

I don't know, because I don't like using any of that stuff. My experience with various kinds of landscape fabric barriers is that they work pretty well the first season, less well the second season. After that, I think the pores loosen up or something and all the weeds start growing through them. So you still have weeds, but now they have grown through or rooted down into the fabric and are impossible to pull. It turns into a big mess and I end up digging it all out.

I prefer to use cardboard or newspaper as a barrier. Wet down the soil. Lay down a layer or two of cardboard or a bunch of thicknesses of newspaper, overlapping the seams. Wet that down thoroughly and then pile good enriched topsoil on top. The cardboard smothers the weeds out, but then it breaks down, adding organic matter to your soil.



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