Do paper bags stand up to the elements long enough before breaking down to kill any weeds underneath? I have access to cardboard as well but I have lots of paper bags and they are easier to tear up.
What do you plan to use to weigh down the bags so they don’t blow all over? I would not expect them to kill all the weeds, depending on what all you are trying to kill and how many layers of bags you put down.
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Paper and cardboard breakdown quickly against wet soil. The underside of the will attract worms and pill bugs where I live in East coast and it will decompose quickly. Cardboard can last long enough to enough to snuff out most grass and weeds.
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I have some woodchip mulch I was planning on using. Most of the weeds are just grasses/dandelions.
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Sounds like paper bags won’t cut it if even cardboard breaks down that quickly. Thanks!
Dandelion has a tough tap root and will be hard to kill quickly IMO with blocking the sun. Even if you kill one, there are tons of dandelion seeds all around.
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Unfortunately, I’m aware of just how easily they spread. I wasn’t necessarily planning on completely clearing out 100% of the weeds but was certainly hoping to knock them back a bit. Sounds like itll have to be cardboard to even achieve that much.
Cardboard and wood chip mulch last a season or less against weeds here in western Wisconsin, but I still put it down when time and energy permit, as it looks nice for a while, at least, plus provides nutrients when it decays. The weeds that appear in the mulch are much taller and darker green than the weeds in the unmulched areas.
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Well my hope was, use something to knock out some/most of the weeds and then let my strawberries run wild and hopefully shade out some future weeds. Obviously I will still have to go in there and pull weeds but my hope is that there will be some suppression via the strawbs.
If I had better planning, I would put the cardboard/compost/woodchips out in late winter to smother/enrich the area before spring planting.
I usually resort to wanting to plant immediately, so I just remove grass/weeds with shovel. Very time consuming but good workout at least…
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Lol been there way more than I care to admit.
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I have been using cardboard around my apple trees. I think that the paper bags will break down to fast. I just put a bag of pellitized lime onto they get “attached” to the soil.
I used paper bags in combination with cardboard. If you do a large area, there will always be some small gaps that appear and you can use a doubled up paper bag, or a stack of paper bags to fill the gap. I highly recommend overlapping the cardboard so much that you get 2 layers down. Weeds will find any gaps you leave. Throw your paper bags down as an extra layer just for more compost even if you have enough cardboard.
I’ve been using cardboard for years. We moved here 4 years ago so I started new beds on hard unfertile soil. I placed several thickness of cardboard around the plants, overlapping to prevent breakthrough. I then topped it off with bark mulch. It lasted a season but of course the roots where still there so it started coming back. I did it again and by the next season, I had very little weeds etc. to pull. I keep those beds mulched and no longer need the cardboard. Each spring, I pull the mulch back from the plant to add organic fertilizer on top of the soil and I’m amazed at the worms and the feel of the soil now. It really does improve each year. So, when I started my berry plants (blackberries and blueberries) I used cardboard around them but topped it off with a thick matt of wheat straw. It was cheaper than mulch and since it wasn’t my foundation beds around the house, it didn’t need to look pretty so that’s my first choice in the garden. I go to McDonald’s and load up on plain cardboard (with their permission of course) and come back and put it pretty thick. I also like the thick straw because it seems to last longer than mulch, which seems to blend in with the dirt, and it holds the moisture in so much better. It can be bone dry next to my rows but when I stick my hand under that straw and cardboard, it’s still cool and moist which is very important here in the mid south (zone 7B). I can also tell the dirt is starting to fluff up so to speak and worms are everywhere now. It can be work up front but it sure saves time later and my plants seem to love it.
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