Serious question, I visited the new community garden on Elm Street and noticed everyone uses those black plastic weed barriers.

After seeing the compacted, lifeless dirt underneath mine after just one season, I'm starting to think the popular advice to always use them is actually creating a long-term soil health problem that's harder to fix than weeds. Has anyone else ripped theirs out and tried a different method?

3 comments

3 Comments

samward3mo agoTop Commenter

Did you pull yours up too? I mean, I used to swear by that stuff, but seeing how dead the ground gets changed my mind for sure.

mia5923mo ago

But have you actually checked what's under there after a full season? The ground isn't dead, it's just resting and way less weedy. That stuff saves so much time and water, doesn't it? Letting it break down naturally adds stuff back to the soil too. Sometimes a clean start is better than fighting weeds all summer.

miles_perez17d ago

I read somewhere that the microbes in the soil need that organic layer to survive, so when you pull all the ground cover it basically starves them. A buddy of mine who does landscaping said it takes a couple seasons for the soil biology to bounce back after you remove it all. Idk, I guess there's a balance between keeping things neat and letting the dirt actually breathe.