Timothy Norton wrote:From my experience, I have found that there is a critical mass that has to be achieved to get a good smothering effect from wood chips.
As you might of experienced with time, woodchips settle out and your initial layer goes from lets say 6" down to 2". I've done back of the hand experiments with a cardboard smother layer + 12" of chips, a kraft paper smother layer and 12" of chips, and a bed of just 5" of woodchip.
Both 12" woodchip layers have done remarkable with eliminating grass and weeds. No difference if it was thick corrugated board or just a layer of paper. The 5" bed has areas of grass/weeds poking through. It also didn't start until the chips settled with the rain down to a 2"ish layer.
Let me try to spitball some ideas that might help you seeing as getting more woodchips would prove difficult for you.
I too have wood chip pathways between my raised garden beds that I top off yearly. However it isn't always woodchips. It isn't the right season at the moment, but fall leaves work wonderfully. They might get a little slippery in rain but I tend to rake them in slightly with the chip so I don't have a slick walkway. I also have been known to rake back areas and spot add some kind of smother layer and recover if there seems to be an area that might be growing weeds. I'm not talking going DEEP, just enough to bury the smother lay.
Do you happen to have pictures to better visualize the space and where the weeds are popping up?
Christopher Weeks wrote:I have a pretty similar situation. Two things: I've found that weeding those deep roots out of the wood chips is much easier than out of soil, so that's nice even if it's not proof against weeds. And I'm also adding another six inches of chips. The beds will be a bit sunken-feeling instead of raised, but whatever works!
Phil Stevens wrote:Don't underestimate sheep for tidying up rough pasture. Older ewes are best...they'll mow through all sorts of stuff. They don't root like pigs and aren't as troublesome as goats.
Nancy Reading wrote:Grass paths between garden beds are a perfectly fine idea. They have the advantage of creating a 'living root' and beetle habitat adjacent to your growing area. Check out this excerpt from the Garden Master course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fp0d6vVzQ8. Helen also mows her paths and puts the mowings straight onto her garden beds to feed the soil microbes directly, so there are lots of advantages.
As I understand your post, you are wondering how to keep the paths from getting too muddy and losing the resiliance of turf when trodden on more intensively.
I suppose the thing to do is to think of it as a very small lawn.
# Improve drainage: This might be awkward if you are going to have raised beds, since the paths in between will become streams in wet weather. however small ditches (I'm thinking just a trowel width/depth) between bed and path may help a bit. The traditional thing to do with wet lawns is to poke holes in them and back fill the holes with sand.
# Cut grass longer: Just slightly longer ought to give it a bit of resilliance to foot treading.
# Sow more hardwearing grass: There are different grass seeds available for lawns. Maybe you can find one that is more suited to a wet / high traffic area and oversow into the existing sward.
It will help if you make the paths the same width as your lawnmower will cut as well
You may find still that certain areas which get most traffic will still get too muddy, and you might want to strategically resurface locally as has been suggested above.
Hans Quistorff wrote:
how to maintain the paths between beds - The soil is stony clay
My suggestion is use stones. That is a permaculture principle the solution is usually in the problem.
I have very wet winters so pathways close to my house are a problem. My solution was to remove all rocks from my sandy/grave soil and use them in my pathways. [there is no rocks in my area of clay soil so rock had to be imported to make a road across it 100 years ago]
My suggestion is to double dig the pathways and reserve the soil and put the rocks in he path then double dig the bed putting the rocks in the path and the reserved soil in the bed with added composted material. Possibly adding uncomposted branches and wood in the bottom of the double dug trench to elevate the bed above winter water and provide water reservoir for summer drought.
I have a large field of grass in the clay area which I mow and fill wet swales with in the winter which starts the composting action In the spring I gather that for compost which can be finished by miking with green clippings. dry grass clippings are used for surface mulch.
If you do not have lawn areas as a resource then try to enlist neighbors who do and chouse not to garden.
G Freden wrote:It sounds like ecological succession going on, with the weeds preparing the soil for a future forest. The buttercup is keep the soil from eroding, and the nettle is soaking up the extra nutrients, again to keep them from washing away. Since a meadow isn't ideal for this spot, I give my vote for a little woodland with well spaced trees and perhaps a path or two throughout. The willow and alder are good trees for this, and can be coppiced if needed for firewood/basketry/animal feed/etc. I'm sure many other trees would flourish here, including some fruit or nut trees if desired.
Another thought: it sounds as though some animals might enjoy this space too, particularly ducks and/or geese; however, as you may be aware, in the UK we are under a housing order for all domestic birds because of avian influenza, so they obviously would not be able to access it until this is lifted (last year's ended in May).
Additional thought: mentioned above, some people will simply mow paths through their meadows instead of mowing the whole thing, which would certainly save on effort for you, and still make the space useable for humans. Have the kids build a den in the best hidey spot and mow an unexpected path to it. Put in a bench with a view to a bird feeder and mow to these. Mow a path to the best part of the river for stone skipping. Let the rest grow to its nettle-y, buttercup-y, bramble-y potential.