Don't Use Landscape Fabric In The Garden

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Here are six solid reasons for why you don't use landscape fabric in the garden. Practical advice from garden author Doug Green. You can get more from Doug at http://www.douggreensgarden.com. Landscape fabric in the garden is one of those garden practices that I think is highly overrated and completely non-essential in most cases, and downright bad gardening in others. Here's the deal. When you put landscape fabric in your garden, you immediately stop any soil organic matter from getting to the soil and improving it. You pretty much choke off soil improvement because you can't replace the organic matter that's being consumed by the soil processes. The plastic stops the mulch from replenishing it. Landscape fabric installation is recommended by many landscapers on the basis of stopping weeds. What they don't tell you is that weeds will germinate quite nicely on top of the mulch and if you don't get them right away, their roots will weave themselves into the fabric making them very hard to pull up. I've been asked about putting landscape fabric in the vegetable garden and that, again, is no place for this product. Vegetables depend even more on high organic matter content of the soil and landscape fabric stops that. Note that putting landscape fabric in the garden is not a sustainable gardening practice. So, while landscape fabric installation is beloved of landscapers and designers, it is not good for the soil, doesn't save much work and isn't sustainable. And that my friends is what I think about landscape fabric.

Comments

Great advice.. I bought the preen fabric but not for a garden.. thanks.

Everything said is true, I made the mistake of using it in my landscaping & two years later had to pull it up. Don't use it.

Thanks, I'm pulling all the landscape fabric from the area we plan to garden. I understand why landscapers use it but often wondered how safe it is especially if you want to do organic gardening. Great video!

Other alternatives?

couldn't you just pull the fabric up after a harvest clean it put and put down some nutrients such as compost rock dust etc and then recover it? also I didn't hear you mention if it's a good idea to put down wood chips over the fabric.

Good video

Landscape fabric tightly tucked around base of trees will inevitably girdle their stems in several years!

I wish I had seen this years ago. I am still pulling bits and pieces of the damned stuff up. Thanks for your tips Doug.

agreed

Personally, I could not have a garden without landscape fabric. I use it all the time and probably would not have a garden without it. I use it every where I do not intend to grow vegetables (around raised beds, in pathways, etc. ) It greatly reduces the weeds and it is sooo easy to pull a weed off the top of fabric versus out of the ground. Clay soil will not let go of crab grass but it is so easy to pull it out of a layer of mulch on top of fabric. I do agree you cannot build soil where there is fabric, so I do not put it around my plants. However, I do use it under my raised beds and this prevents bad bugs and moles from getting into my beds.