Covering old weedy gravel paths

Hello all! I moved into a home with an existing raised bed garden area about 4 years ago now. The beds are in a fenced in area, and the entire area is covered in a layer of small crushed stone gravel.

Every year, the onslaught of plants coming up through the gravel is getting harder to manage. Last year, it was a veritable jungle down there by mid summer - thistles, grasses, dayflower, and it's quite hard to get them out since I can't use something like a sickle or hand hoe on the rocks.

I have a bunch of ram board (thick cardboard paper) leftover from home improvement this winter, so I was thinking about laying that down over the gravel to choke out the weeds for a season. Maybe after that I could do a layer of mulch?

Anyone have any better suggestions?

Here on the forum most folks use a thick layer wood chips.  Seems to me that might be okay over gravel or maybe the gravel could be moved.

Over time the wood chips break down and turn into soil so the wood chips would need to be replace accordingly.

I have read that some ram board has been treated for different applications such as waterproof,  vapor barrier, etc so be sure that that has not happen if using in a garden.

Wood chips, as Anne suggests.

Also, is it a deep layer of gravel with perennial weeds established in and below the gravel?  I have a gravel path I made with my huge surplus of rocks and gravel from my stream floodplain alluvial soil. I find this is pretty easy to dig into with the right tool, but only when it is still moist from a rain or melting snow. I use a sturdy 4-tooth garden fork, working it in with a rocking motion to get through the gravel. Then I'm able to leverage out the tap roots of the deep rooted weeds, and sift out the roots of grasses and shallow weeds as I pry it up. By summer, everything is dry and compacted, the weed roots are well established, and they wont come out easily.

Frost heave is your friend. Do the hard work in late winter, early spring when frost heave makes the ground easy to work, and before the weeds get going. Over winter, they are putting their energy into the root system. They benefit from the frost heave, too, spreading their root networks out. Short circuit their progress by extracting their root systems with your fork. Even if some of the roots survive deep down, they will be greatly set back by your efforts.

If its just a thin layer of gravel, well.... that's not doing much good anyway. Scrape that useless stuff out with a mattock, dig down and root out the offending weeds, put down some cardboard and paper, extra thick, and cover with 12 inches of woodchips. Repeat every year or two. Harvest the perfect topsoil at the bottom the worms will make for you. Worms love cardboard. I think its the glue, made from waste animal parts, its their second favorite food (after coffee grounds).

Great point Anne, I’ll be sure to check it’s untreated if I use it. I’m sure I can find some free wood chips around here somewhere.

Thank you for the information about weeding the perennials, B. I’ll definitely be making use of that.