Stuttering, if not stumped, Newbie Question.
Still to get the raised beds finished, but we need to figure out the finer points of sorting the paths.
Now I've got a good (& free) supply of bark chippings. The local sawmill (from whom we bought the timber for the beds) has to pay the council to get rid of their excess bark, so we can just take what we want, as long as we bag and remove it. So that seems like a good 'on top' solution.
But what are our options on the permeable barrier in between the soil and the bark chippings? Anyone? Don't want to have to do this more than once-in-a-very-long-while, or, worse, make a hideously expensive cropper ::)
What have you used? How well did it work? Recommendations?
Any info on price/durability would also be hoovered up!
I would advise you to put down a breathable weed control fabric . Just found 100mx1.5metres on ebay for £40! Garden centre price last time I looked was about £10 fo 10 metres.. If you dont weeds such as couch will come straight through bark. Try and tuck it under the edges of the timber of your raised beds as well.
Dont forget you can still get weeds growing in the bark but at least they are easy to pull up. ;)
We put new wood chips on the paths every year, straight onto soil paths. There is not much trouble with weeds but when we see some come through we just scrape the chips aside and dig them out. Some day we may invest in weed control fabric, I wonder if the life of the wood chips gets prolonged laying on fabric instead of soil.
I don't find it a lot of work spreading new wood chips but collecting and transporting them on the bicycle is a bit of a job. The city workers leave piles of chips around town after trimming the trees every late winter and we get as much as we can before they come around to collect them.
I bought some heavyweight weed suppressant which can be used for paths and it allows rain to pass through. I think the proper name is something like Phormysil or Formycil. I got mine from Birstall (on line) but it's not cheap. It is good quality though unlike some cheap stuff I got from B & Q. So I suppose you get what you pay for. I've had some of the good stuff down in my garden since we moved in 5 years ago in a neglected corner of my garden which I haven't got round to doing anything with yet, and nothing has come through it so it must be good. :)