Has anyone used paper mulch in vegetable beds? Not newspaper or cardboard. Stuff like this:
https://territorialseed.com/products/weed-barrier-weedguard-plus
Concern is whether they are truly water-permeable. My experience is that once it dries out even a little, water just runs off when using cardboard or newspaper.
I use heavy contractors paper from Home Depot. It’s about $10 a roll.
I put wood chips on top of it. Works great.
I used black paper from Johnnyseed for the last two years over my vegetables. I like it better than plastic because water can get in better but it does still hold water in although not as much as plastic. The best part is you can just till it in afterwards. It only lasts a season and the black bleached out nearly instantly.
Do you irrigate? If so do you put the lines under or over it?
I’m not saying not to use single use paper mulch, but making paper products is not without environmental consequences. Being biodegradable doesn’t make a product automatically environmentally friendly.
However, used newspapers are getting hard to come by. My news is delivered via the internet. I used to use newspaper mulch as much as anything to decompose my newspaper.
Paper is paper- in the humid region it never seems to dry out in a water shedding way if it’s covered with wood mulch.
Cardboard is fine with woodchips over it for trees, especially if they’ve established for a year. I always worry a bit about gas exchange, especially in poor draining soils- but worms rapidly put holes in it.
Lots of cardboard around thanks to on-line shopping.
I have used ram board from the hardware store and covered it with mulch when converting thick lawn to a flower or vegetable beds. It is easier than newspaper to cover a large area and to get a straight line. It works great but wont last more than a season so you will have to add more paper in problem areas in the future.
Just water right on top of it I live in a pretty hot and dry environment. With the mulch over the top it doesn’t seem to be a problem for getting too dry. If the water does flow it will usually find its way to the hole around the crown of your plants.
Im lucky that my job offers me endless amounts of corrugated cardboard. I use it everyplace for flat laid mulch. Heeling-in boxes. For seedlings. When i lay it flat and use alfalfa hay over it by the following year there are handfuls of worms everywhere u look.
Im even using some now to starve out some creeping charlie and it helped me control the mass of poison ivy i have been dealing with.
I rip it thin for firestarts in the wood stove.
Super useful stuff. And near dumpsters or from medical offices/surgi centers its free. Thats a big deal to me lol
The benefit of preventing water loss makes ur irrigation go so much further too im sure
Reducing water loss. No matter how much you mulch, transpiration takes its due. Partially rotted wood chips are one of the best water reservoirs. Capillary action pulls it out of the wood into the soil as the soil dries. Perfect. Except when you are trying to reduce water to raise brix.
Incidentally, soil itself works much as mulch for conserving water. Deeper soils assure more access to water. Although that’s obvious growers sometimes fail to consider it in shallow soils.
In shallow soils I always dress the trees with a layer of compost before mulching.
Truth, reducing is the better word
My wood guy provides me with lots of shredded/broken itty bitty wood fragments. I love using them to introduce good bacteria. I usually put the wood under mulches. I know there is the nitrogen reservoir/tied up in wood activity but with good soil and some yearly urea around the trees i think i am doing ok to balance it out
When my buddy comes across fungi growing under trees he’ll pick up several (if many) or at least one to transplant under an important tree of his… usually a grafted tree. He’s always looking for the type of fungi associations and where he’s finding. He believes molasses to be an important player in the feeding of fungi to quickly establish the relationship among the above ground fungus and the mycorrhizal relationship of fine root tip(s) feeding, underground & is always mixing up a brew of molasses and water for irrigating newly planted trees and for his older established trees he’s introducing fungi under. Pretty cool stuff I believe. And he knows fungi very well, so… he’s got a natural ability to see things others normally, wouldn’t… and run with it (hoping 
he’s doing no harm to his trees. He’s pretty humorous.
My main concern is weed prevention. Any exposed ground becomes covered in foot-tall weeds in about seven hours it seems. I exaggerate, but not by much. 
i think yr friend has got the right idea 
I think his friend bases his private mythology on real research and science but makes many leaps of faith. I believe the research shows that in most soils no great help from humans is needed for trees to make their own friends. Damn helicopter parents.
It doesn’t require real strong pot to imagine you can see bind weed grow.
When it’s dry, the stuff is so stiff it will blow away if not totally held down. When it’s wet, it rips and tears, letting the weeds thru.
Maybe good old straw is still the best.
I recycled shredded paper and put thick layer of it around the truck of my trees. It formed a hard crust after a while and did prevented weeds grow. In fact my mints didn’t grow where the shreaded paper was laid. It really promoted earthworm population which was one of my purpose of using paper besides trying to be green and recycle material as much as I can . It takes less a year to breakdown completely. My shredded paper usually was heavy and long. It tangled together and prevented single piece of paper from being blown away.
“Paper Mulch” for $111!!! Someone buys it from Homedepot and rebrands. This one, from ULine, is CAD$ 37 for 24"x1200’, just as an example: https://www.uline.ca/Product/Detail/S-3575/Kraft-Paper-Wrap/30-lb-Kraft-Paper-Roll-24-x-1200
Yes I used it. And 2"-3" mulch on top. Didn’t work with lily of valleys. But good approach anyway.