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?

2 comments

2 Comments

samward9d ago

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.

mia5928d agoMost Upvoted

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.