This topic contains 7 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by SharonJ 8 years, 2 months ago.
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I am also interested in Path options -a which are better options and why?
How do path choices affect weeds and slugs ? Or vice versa
Appreciate any helpIt depends partly whether your beds have sides, if so you can lay wood bark or chips etc without worry of the wood getting into bed compost, and vice-versa.
Straw often has slugs underneath and grass harbours slugs, as well as continually invading beds with no sides.Perennial weeds that keep regrowing can be mulched with mypex, I have not used it but have seen it effective against marestail etc and it sounds a fair option grannyjanny, but watch the edges where those weeds may pop out and keep pulling new shoots you see, otherwise they can spread back into unmulched beds.
I started with a lot of couch and bindweed in places here, and last year I kept my paths mulched with cardboard. Now the couch is completely gone, saving me much time, while bindweed is much weakened and easier to keep on top of, twice a week where possible.
Before I found this method I put down what was described as heavy duty weed membrane in my fruit patch. My main problems were with Dandilion and thistle. The Dandilion came up round it but did subesquently die down, the thistle came straight up through it and to make matters worse as the bark on top decomposed couch grass moved in. Last winter I removed the membrane and on most of the remaining paths put down a thick layer of card with wood chip on top, this is much easier to hoe and has done at least as good a job as the membrane in suppressing weeds. My only slight downfall was the chipings were free and had been sitting around a while so bought some of their own weed seed!
Our town recently installed fake turf on the local football field. There are a whole bunch of off cuts at the dump, which we are going to go grab this week. So between my raised beds will be pretend “grass.” It is a permeable barrier, but weeds will not get through it and it will be green. Yaaaay.
I strimmed the grass really short first on my allotment, then added a layer of black felt and on top of that some chip bark. Seems to work well. I’ve had the odd weed come through in the first year which I just dug out.
Last spring I had a c. 0.75 cubic metre bin of compost, which I passed through a coarse wire filter, collecting the fines to put down below the fruit trees and along the raspberry rows, on the salad bed etc etc.
I used the coarse stuff left on the filter to cover my paths and had enough to cover around 20m * 0.5m on our growing area. The sorts of things remaining were tomato hauls, broad bean hauls, potato haulms etc.
It rotted down perfectly over the next 12 months and, although a few grass clumps grew out of it, they could be weeded easily as and when.
Slugs last year for whatever reason were much less frequent than previous years, so the strategy didn’t provide haven for the little rotters.
Rhys, you are so funny. I hate slugs with a passion. Out here in British Columbia we get those giant banana slugs that practically chase you, but the normal garden kind are usually the black ones. In really cold winters, I stand outside imagining them all dying, however, as you know, that is sadly not the case.
My slug solution was to allow thick grasses and shrubs to grow around the boundaries of the garden where garter snakes can hide. They love to eat slugs. When my neighbour’s cat catches one, she brings it over and sets it free in my garden. I have not seen a slug now for over two years.
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