(
Via EnjoyGardening)
Posted by admin to Current Articles on 2008-02-22, 07:09:59
first printed February 14, 2008
Hopefully, once you have finished reading this article you will feel compelled to tear it into tiny pieces and toss it in the dirt. And no, before you send Dr. Phil my way, this odd declaration has nothing to do with some self-deprecating need to have my writing disappoint or anger you. What I really want is to get you thinking of newspaper as a material that’s excellent not only for keeping minds enlightened, but also for keeping weeds in the dark.
Newsprint, as gardeners discovered at the dawn of the printing press, is a rather good material for reducing weed germination. Just a few sheets laid down between rows of vegetables or shrubs can inhibit the emergence of tiny weeds. Of course, there’s nothing magical about a newspaper’s ability to suppress weed growth. It simply acts as a light-reducing, physical barrier.
The largest component of newsprint is nothing more than finely chopped wood fibres, which are comparable to any other organic mulch material, from compost to pine bark. However, the biggest difference with newsprint is that it breaks down more rapidly than commercially available mulches because of its composition and high surface-to-weight ratio. Translation: a lot of a newspaper’s surface is exposed to moisture and micro-organisms, so it decomposes rather quickly. As of yet, we don’t have organic standards in Canada, but the OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute) in the U.S. lists newsprint as an organic product, and I would guess that when our standards are set (in the very near future), newsprint will qualify as organic here, too.
Most of the inks used on newsprint are petroleum based, which, to my way of thinking (from an environmental perspective), is of little concern in the garden. First of all, the ratio of ink to newsprint is rather small, and secondly, the tiny bit of ink that is on the newsprint is digested fairly rapidly by various soil microbes found in gardens. Of course, that’s not to say that dumping a few litres of petroleum-based products is ever a good idea, but the volume of ink that comes with a few layers of newsprint is entirely manageable.
Some of the research I’ve read on newsprint’s role in weed suppression states that shredded newsprint is more effective than overlapped sheets of newsprint. Apparently, shredded newsprint can be fluffed up, forming a looser but thicker layer, which is a more effective weed barrier than the thin sheets. However, having said that, I would never put shredded paper into my garden for two reasons. First, I think it would look rather ugly, and secondly, a good wind would blow it throughout the neighbourhood. And I’ll take a few weeds over angry neighbours any day. Since flat sheets of newspaper won’t win any yard-and-garden-beautification awards either, simply place a thin layer of compost over top of the newsprint to conceal your handy work.
So, if you think that newsprint might be worth trying, just keep in mind that although it is cheap and environmentally friendly, it won’t control the really tough perennial weeds, such as quackgrass and thistle. However, if you have a small vegetable patch with rows of carrots, beets and the like, you might want to give newsprint a try. Then again, if you think that this is the stupidest gardening article you’ve ever read and pitch it out the backdoor, well you might inadvertently be giving the weed-killing newsprint a chance anyway.
