Any suggestions for paths

[MattD]

Anyone good any good ideas for keeping paths looking tidy? - I find I spend an increasing amount of time weeding mine, and getting the grass cut several times a year is a real pain as I have to drag a petrol mower down there.

I tried mulching with woodchip which rotted down into topsoil after a couple of years and seems to welcome weed seeds - also tried using stones, which at least makes the weeds easy to remove, but it will take about another 50 years to get enough stones to cover them all.  The main weeds are dandelions and mares tails - coming from a semi derilict plot next door.

One neighbour has used roofing felt to cover the paths, which is ugly but appears to be effective - ut bsuspect it wont take much to wear through it though.

Is there a plant other than grass which will take walking on,  and grow so dense that weeds can't compete?

Matt

[MattD]

[lottie lou]

They all may laugh but I use newspaper o cover my paths with woodchip on top, if not just plain newspaper/cardboard and lots of it.  Seems to work.  Alternatively you could use that weed suppressant membrane with woodchip on top.  Lots of our plotholders do.

[manicscousers]

We use thick cardboard, weed control and wood chip over the top. We used to use compost bags cut length ways before we got the weed control  :)

[pigeonseed]

I think it depends a lot of how your borders are. If you have solid edging, like scaffolding boards or that sort of thing, either side of the paths, then I think it's easier to find materials to put down. If you don't, the pathing materials tend to wander and weeds sprout up from underneath.

Don't collect pebbles and lay them down - that's my advice. It works very well in summer, when hot and dry, but once winter comes and the weeds do grow through, it's un-mowable because of the pebbles. I made that mistake with my first allotment!  ::)

My dream one day is to have a lot of brick paths. I love the way they look, but it's a lot of bricks to collect!

Isn't there any way you could leave the mower there? 

[kt.]

I use paving slabs for part and scaffold boards for some edging.  It is easy to then dig right up to the planting edge of the boards and even easier to just weed kill everything on the side of the path.

[newspud9]

MattD...I share your pain.  After 3 years of going through the same thing (more time weeding paths than growing veggies), I weeded thoroughly, put down a layer of membrane and then a layer of thick black plastic and only then some bark chips.  Anything less and weeds would find a way through...just bark chips or membrane wasnt nearly tough enough. I know multiple layers sounds like overkill, but it's working well and its a "just do it once" task which means I can devote the time to actually planting and growing.

[Digeroo]

I use straw.  I get it at £3 a bale and use it to shelter my courgettes from the wind, then it does paths and then it does mulching. 

[elvis2003]

compost bags and woodchip for us ;)

[delboy]

I'm not altogether happy about having permanent paths, as I want to be able to maximize the growing areas from time to time - for example when planting out spuds, so I put down the cardboard and paper mentioned earlier and cover with woodchip(not the bulky stuff), and then dig over the paths every year when I change the what I grow and where I grow it.

Used to have permamnent paths, but found after a year or two that I was being hamstrung by where they were.

[staris]

my allotment had loads of raised beds and keeping the paths cut drove me mad i hated doing it when there was other stuff to be done, so i've dug them all up and only have one path down the middle covered with reclaimed paving stone and use scaffolding boards to walk on the rest rest so they are easy to move around.

[Digeroo]

I found that wooden boards habour slugs.  At least with the straw you squash them as you walk. :o

[staris]

agree with that when i removed my wooden boards they were tons of slugs and snail on them.

[Toshofthe Wuffingas]

This is my first year on my allotment but so far I have been aiming for bare paths between mounded beds. It means I can happily dig and delve out permanent weeds. Probably eventually, wood chip or straw sounds nice but first things first.