With my love of gardening growing stronger every year, one thing I’m not too fond of is weeding.

I’m all about sowing the seeds, keeping a close eye on the sprouts, and nurturing my garden to prosperity.  Making sure my gardens get watered every day is also a top priority, but my garden isn’t all that’s benefiting from my care.  Weeds come in and take an unwelcomed advantage.

As I keep an organic garden, pesticides and the like are out of the question, so I have to weed.

And weed.

And weed.

Like with all gardens, weeds can overtake the beauty in what seems like only a day’s time.  A garden bed can be free of a weed one day, then the next, there’s at least two full grown weeds, attempting to take over.  This can be very frustrating.

Spreading mulch around your garden beds does help lower weed growth, but you need to take it a step further and put down a weed barrier to minimize their growth before the mulch goes down.

Enter today’s Quick Tip Friday.

I set out to buy a few rolls of weed barrier fabric, but I stopped short when it crossed my mind that recycled newspaper would work just as well.  Being biodegradable, newspapers would be perfect.  And naturally, it would cut my costs down, too, as I already had a few already read, Poughkeepsie Journals on hand.

So I grabbed a pile of Journals and headed out to conquer my weed problem.  I started to lay out the newspaper pages in single layers around my garden beds, when a slight breeze blew through, and my newspapers started flying.  Before I knew it, I was running all over my yard trying to catch all the airborne papers.  I’d catch up with a page, then the breeze would take it away.  I was trying to grab with my hands, and was putting out my feet to hold the pages in place on the ground.  I was all over the place.  I had to have looked like an uncoordinated idiot, and was undoubtedly giving my neighbors a nice laugh.

After gathering all of the pages, finally, it was evident that the newspaper pages need a little immediate weight to hold it in place until the mulch can be spread over.  That’s where a bucket of water comes in.  Take a page, quickly dunk it in the water, then lie it down on the garden bed.

I suggest working in smaller sections at a time.  Place three to four pages around the garden area, then cover the newspaper with the mulch.  Move to the next garden section and repeat.  Make sure you have a mulch supply beforehand, or whatever cover you prefer to spread on top of the newspaper.

By utilizing newspaper, (weighted with water, no less) around your garden beds as a weed barrier, then following up with a layer of mulch, you will indeed show those weeds who’s boss!

Enjoy today’s Quick Tip Friday!