[MAK]

Pulling weeds or digging them in and hoeing is a dilema. For years I had clean beds and would pull weeds and go for a tidy plot. Now I follow my 2 neighbours who are plus 80 years old and have a lad ploug up their veg plot in spring and plant seed and spuds in the raised rows. They sow and plant very close together and hoe between the rows.
What I don't understand is why they have no weeds amongst their lettuce, carrots etc etc. they plant by the moon and have set dates for sowing and harvesting so maybe if they get vigourous plant growth at the optimum time of year it dominates weed growth.  They are surrounded by cattle pasture and we all only control nettle growth (by hacking them to bits a few times a year).
I'm for hoeing from now on - less work.
 

[RUSTYME]

Yes , when you first start a plot , you dig over and remove all perennial weeds and all roots , thereafter , as the weed seeds germinate you hoe them at about 1-2 weeks . The chopped tops just die off and rot down as do the tiny roots . After a few times of doing this , very few weed seeds are left in the soil , thus very little weeding .

[Fleecewife]

Hoeing is my ideal too.  However for that approach to be effective you need the soil surface to dry out.  In some years here in Scotland that never happens all 'summer'. Seems impossible if you live in a drier area, but believe me it is the case.  If you try to hoe in wet conditions, all you do is uproot the tiny weed seedlings and they simply re-root themselves.  The hoe gets sticky with soil so no longer cuts through any stems, and the seedlings never dry out and die in the sun.  So here we have to look for alternatives.
The repeated weeding approach sounds sensible too, unless you have health problems and simply cannot manage that amount of work consistently.  For this reason I try a variety of other ways to garden, which include accepting a certain amount of weed cover, as long as I can keep the perennials out.  Some weeds don't seem to affect crop production, although certain things such as onions hate any competition - so they get special treatment.
 
I wasn't aware that there were any noxious chemicals in cardboard manufacture, except maybe a bit of glue.  Which ones are present?  I know the glossy mags and printing ink are bad, but I use plain thick cardboard.

[RUSTYME]

I can't search for the info now , but cardboard with print on had iffy chems , can't remember which one's , but i know i don't want them in my food and thus me !
Also cardboard made with recycled cardboard and paper has the chems that were in the paper .
I read the info in an article on a gardening website , can't remember which one , it was 3 or 4 years ago now , but i should think the info on what chemicals cardboard contains is fairly easy to find with a pc .
Some cardboard was ok , other stuff wasn't , i just chose not to bother risking it . I burn it and use the ashes , which i read and thought it would be , is meant to be ok to use , no more chems than fall from the sky in rain . Nothing i can do about them lol !
So , it is a matter of choice fw .
It would defeat the object of gardening chem free , if i then went and pumped the ground full of chems via unknown ingredients in cardboard .
I just like to know exactly what i put in my soil , as near as possible anyway .
I don't apply any chemicals in any form , only use horse manure from my horses , only fed organic haylage and oats or barley and no chemical wormers .
I get some cow manure that is from organically kept cows , no chems .
I also apply compost i make from vegetation from my own land , therefore no added chems .
I can't do anything about the rain or any wind blown spray , but i can do something about what i add to the ground .

[Dans]

Did it relate to this at all Rusty?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12663183

Dans

[RUSTYME]

Yes . That was the one that made me do a bit more searching at the time Dans .
 The mineral oils are also in some of the print on cardboard .  There are other chemicals used in the paper making process  that also i would rather not feed to my plants . Like petro chemicals they can take upto 100  years , maybe longer , to leave the soil , but where do they go then ?

[Fleecewife]

                           
                                  Eeeek    WE'RE ALL DOOMED 
 
 
The bit which is relevant to the cardboard I have used is the last sentence:
<<This is because food cartons are themselves stored and transported in larger corrugated cardboard boxes which are also made from recycled newspapers, and are also a source of contamination.>>
 
 
It would be good to get access to the original research rather than the press's take on it.
Dans do you still have access to academic papers?
Cereal boxes etc would not be of any use for covering the soil, and print has long been known to be carcinogenic - I used to work for the NHS in Dundee which has a big printing industry and there was still a number of cases of men with penile cancer from working in the print world     Guess who didn't wash their hands?
The big thick cardboard though is great - bummer if it really is toxic.
 
 
One alternative I can think of is old sheets of corrugated iron, but they are difficult to pin down in a gale and are lethal when they fly about the place.   They would leach iron no doubt, but my soil already has plenty of the naturally occurring stuff.

[Spinningfishwife]

As I understand it it's the coloured inks used on shiny paper and cardboard that are the ones that are best to avoid, black ink and coloured matt paper are okay. I may be out of date here though, I often am! I've never used cereal packet cardboard  or glossy magazines in the compost bins for that reason though I do use newsprint, loo roll inners, egg boxes and all the notes that come back from school.,I must admit though I'm not the most committed of organic gardeners, I don't use chemicals directly on the garden but I'm not too concerned about putting the peelings of a supermarket (non-organic) carrot in the compost bin. .

[RUSTYME]

Corrugated iron would most likely be ok if it wasn't galvanised ! The fumes from galvanised metal are lethal when welding , so in theory , would leave a dangerous residue in the soil over time , i do use corrugated iron  , for roofing not for covering soil though .
I think the poisons in galv are locked in , until it is burnt , by fire or welding .

[MAK]

There must be a sensible organic alternative to cardboard or sheet metal. I cut down a load of ferns around a barn but forgot to move them off the grass for a few weeks. When I did move them them the soild beneath was bare. I guess the question is if the ferns were just simply cuts out the light or if whatever leaches out of the ferns would be nasty for the plants we want to grow nearby.
We are lucky in July and August as it gets a bit hot so hoeing is easy if not a little dusty.

[RUSTYME]

Different ferns have different chemicals , some are poisonous , lol .
Organic straw would be the way to go i suppose , not dug in though , just used as mulch and then composted , just like use on the strawberry bed .

[Spinningfishwife]

Just use a layer of (non perennial) weeds? Or grow some green manure, slash it down and leave it. I've used comfrey as green mulch too, I had a big bed of it on the allotment and it was useful for all sorts of things. You could even use a thick layer of leaves held down with a net.

[RUSTYME]

Would that be a plastic net ?

[Fleecewife]

Would that be a plastic net ?

    
 
Obviously no-one has seen my weeds - they're not sweet little well behaved things but giant thugs which wouldn't be remotely slowed down by layers of straw, no matter how organic, leaves, compost, newspaper, that brown paper you can spend your £££s on. I have tried the black polythene mulch    but the weeds just see it as a momentary setback, and even grow on top of it.  I have sometimes wondered if I should concrete over the lot - but I'm sure some of my weeds would still find a way through 

[Spinningfishwife]

Would that be a plastic net ?

Well, if we were going to be completely purist here you should knot your own nets out of hand made cordage using organic flax or better still, made from the nettles that you weeded from your garden last year. But I suspect most folk would use a plastic net.