Putting in a path

Matu Collins stated elsewhere that he likes putting in wood chip paths with cardboard underneath. Is this a good strategy? Do you eventually pull up the cardboard? Replace it? How often do you have to replace the chips? I'm seriously thinking about a strategy like this for the coming paths in my backyard that will border different zones. Looking for the best solution. And Matu...thanks for the tip!

j

I utilize cardboard/woodchip quite a bit for both perennial beds and pathways between my annual raised garden beds.

Cardboard is intended as a smother layer to prevent grass/weeds from growing through the mulch as it first starts settling. The cardboard is meant only as a one time application as it breaks down with time. Ensure it is stripped of any non-paper tape and use cardboard that is primarily kraft brown. You don't want to use shiny colorful boxes.

I like to start my woodchips at about a foot deep. They sink and interconnect/break down to a nice three four inches rather quickly. These days, I tend to purchase a 10lb sawdust spawn block of Winecaps or gather old caps from a Winecap flush from another bed and place them throughout the sides of the path (Less likely to be trampled but still deep in the woodchips)

Once this has been done, you might notice after a few years a weed or two pop through. I am AMAZED how easy it is to pull out the whole plant and root from the pathway. It seems almost comically easy.

My plan is to reapply another layer of fresh woodchips on top, but I am going to rake the old chip back and put the broken down black gold through a sifter into a wheelbarrow for use in the garden beds. A kind of wood compost system?

I'm still early in my progress, but after moving 30 yards of woodchips so far I have put in another Chipdrop order because I can't get enough of it.

In my zone 3b garden, cardboard under chips or hay takes 2 years to vanish more or less completely. It seems like in a substantially longer season, it would take less time to compost. But I've read accounts of places where it doesn't break down and chokes up the water cycle -- I'm not recalling what conditions lead to that.

In my experience and climate area, the cardboard breaks down a lot faster than the wood chips so you can end up with weedy wood chips. But that can be avoided if you just keep adding a new layer of wood chips that is deep enough. The cardboard is mostly helpful for the initial layout.

I do cardboard, packing paper, and old canvas cloth for weed barriers under wood chips. I'm in an arid area so it takes years for the cardboard to break down. I just keep dumping chips on top of everything and weed burn in the spring the few that poke through.

A foot of wood chips on top of cardboard with no digging? Just place them where you want the path?

j

Timothy Norton wrote:

I like to start my woodchips at about a foot deep. They sink and interconnect/break down to a nice three four inches rather quickly. These days, I tend to purchase a 10lb sawdust spawn block of Winecaps or gather old caps from a Winecap flush from another bed and place them throughout the sides of the path (Less likely to be trampled but still deep in the woodchips)

i'd agree that whether you use cardboard or not depends on your weed pressure and climate. I used to have some friends that ran a sawmill and regularly got large amounts of sawdust, which i spread out to use as garden paths (nothing underneath) as it rotted since i had no place to store it. Worked great, kept the path areas non-compressed. And once it got relatively rotted i'd spread it out to use as mulch and replenish. my weeds were too interested in getting into the beds themselves to waste their time on the paths!

Jim Garlits wrote:A foot of wood chips on top of cardboard with no digging? Just place them where you want the path?

j

Correct, no digging.

There is a little bit of chip dissipation/spread from the sides of the path but not a whole lot in my experience. If you want to line the path with segments of thick branch/small trunk or put in something to maintain the edges that might be some extra work. Or you could periodically rake the sides back towards the middle of the path.

If you COULD use the dirt/soil elsewhere, you could dig it in and the earth itself will hold your pathways together. Just might take some manhours to pop sod.

    As my better half and I have gotten older,  we decided to go with a raised bed garden.  Our garden is now almost 1/2 an acre in size so going to a store and purchasing those little kits wasn't really a great idea if you know what I mean.  
     We dug out the topsoil in our paths until we hit sand. That was about 24 inches in our case.  We went ahead and laid down cardboard (obtained at a local ice cream/butcher shop) in our area next. Then we put down woodchips up to the original depth of the soil. The topsoil that was dug out of the paths was placed to the left (growing area) which started to build up our "raised garden ".  Every third year we have to dig out the paths,  which have pretty much turned into dirt.  
    We did not place sides on the growing area and although the raised areas are now about 3 1/2 foot high everything is working.  We live in the lower SW corner of Michigan so we have a nice sandy loam mix soil.  We were recently upgraded to zone 6B for growing a garden and I'm still trying to get used to the warmer weather.  It is really making a huge difference here.
    This will be about our 11th or 12th year.  Our paths are 24 inches wide, give or take 6 inches. Our growing area is closer to 36 inches wide for the large plants like tomatoes and it goes down to about 24 inches for things like radishes and cut again letttuce.  
    We've tried to keep our paths at the original topsoil level and that means that sometimes we have had to add woodchips every year because of the weather.  We have been fortunate enough to get free chips from companies cutting around our area when we run out.  It hasn't seemed to matter what type of trees are used. The one problem we ran into happened a few years ago. There must have been a bunch of poison oak or poison ivy because I  got it again and again when handling the woodchips.  It didn't affect the food but it made for a long growing season.  
    We no longer have a problem with weeds.  If some do grow then it is very easy to pull them by hand.  Also,  with all the mulching (we also add some compost from our chickens and animals to the growing area each year) we never have to water our garden. The is area acts like a giant sponge.  No matter how much rain we get there is never a puddle.  During the dry season our garden soil stays fairly moist with just the morning dew.  
    I have read that some areas have had problems with snails by using this method.  We have not seen many snails but the local "garter snake " population exploded on our little farm.  Since they are not aggressive or poisonous who am I to complain? In conclusion,  if you end up having too many snails then you just found a way to save money on your duck food bill!

I'm disappointed there hasn't yet been a reference made to Monty Python, the Knights who say "Ni": "A path! A path!" Do better, Permies!

As we are in the middle of a drought around here, my preferred method lately has been to whippersnip the grass down low enough that it has no chance, then simply cover with about 3-4" of mulch.

But I do that only because I ran out of cardboard. In times when I am cardboard-rich, I simply do a layer or three of cardboard, then 3-4" of mulch. I water it down real good too.

We also line our mulched areas with strips of bark. Looks nice as a border and probably has a weak effect of keeping the mulch from getting scattered as much as it otherwise might when being trodden upon.

Appliance stores (not big-box) are an excellent source for cardboard. It is heavy, no tape and available in large quantities, though you likely need a truck for transporting. Use a heavy duty knife to cut. For pathways, I’d use several layers of cardboard beneath many inches of wood chips. I’m a proponent of using raw wool fleece as mulch, and if you have lots of it available, this might be another use for it, under the cardboard and wood chips. Shepherds who raise meat sheep are a source. Wool will decompose over time.

I use ramial chips, from hedgecutting and bush/tree trimming, passed through my hobby shredder (which doesn't do anything thicker than my thumb, so definately not very woody results). No cardboard. On my path down the garden it gets relaid once a year, 1 or 2 inches thick, but having been in the same place for several years the ground beneath has compacted. An autumn redress helps to prevent mud and slips, but the single track of compaction makes for awkward walking if you can't keep in the middle. I'll have to knock the sides down.
There's a thicker bed of the same chips in my greenhouse path, decomposition aided with urine. That gets incorporated in the beds in spring. Happy tomatoes!

Just make sure you follow up your cardboard with the wood chips within a few days.  How do I know?  Um... I have three cardboard paths that had the grass grow up under and through them, creating lumps, hills and earthquake-like fissures and heaving.  What a mess!  I'll need to remove what's left of the cardboard, bush hog the "grass" and then do it over again, followed up with wood chips immediately.  (No, I'm not proud of myself...)

In my gardening business, I've found that native tree chip mulch layered 6" deep (absolutely no sun shining through) will smother most weeds. If you have Bermuda grass or perennial weeds like dandelion then lay cardboard first, in high summer when the Bermuda grass start to grow well. If you lay cardboard down at any other time, it will be broken down by the time the Bermuda grass starts growing. Or you can lay plastic and then mulch. Leave for a couple of years and then remove the plastic. The mulch seems to last a couple of years. If the soil is really hungry it usually only lasts a year.

We are an urban permaculture-ish garden.   As such we started with straight city fill clay, lots of thistle and ragweed.   Ragweed has mostly been eliminated to the point where we must go elsewhere in early summer to harvest it (we tincture it for use in our allergy blend).  But we still deal with a lot of thistle.   We have excellent sources of free woodchips and a bike shop that lets us take all the big bike boxes we want.  Mostly because of thistle and to a lesser extent other things that encroach on paths,  we put down cardboard when we redo them.  It takes less than a year for the cardboard to break down fully.  We have even stopped worrying about removing all of the tape on boxes because leftovers will pop their heads up and can be picked up later.  The woodchips help keep the moisture in the garden instead of running off.  The only drawback I have found is that shoes should be worn in the garden.  😂