Organic grass prevention

[Modern homesteader]

What is everyone using the keep the grass out? The vinegar trick doesn't work for me, my grass is too stubborn. Pine shavings worked the best, but are expensive. Right now I have laid down about 4" of straw hoping it will be as good as the wood chips.

Just curious to see what others are doing.

[Head Dynamics]

Before I build a raised bed I will put newspaper down about 4-5 layer thick or 2 layers of red rosin paper. Then add soil and then mulch and it worked really good this year. But to keep it out once its already established I don't think I can help you out.

[Modern homesteader]

My garden is around a quarter acre. I would love to split the whole thing into nice raised beds but I don't have the time or enough material to fill that many beds!

[Head Dynamics]

I am very blessed in that aspect. My neighbor has a tractor with a bucket and also has horses that poop a lot. He needs rid of the manure and I need the material to fill our beds. I don't take the fresh stuff, its been sitting around for years, so its not very hot. Here is a picture of our 16 raised beds and I'm going to make another 4 next year. You can also see our only bee hive that's still alive.

[Modern homesteader]

That looks awesome. Now you have me thinking I need to do raised beds. I too keep a variety of livestock and have no shortage of compost.

What are the sides of your bed made of? Do you find they rot out and have to be replaced often?

[Head Dynamics]

They are treated 2x10's and have a neighbor that has the same setup and he's going on 10 years. Our beds are only a year old, so personally I can't say, but I take their word for it.
It's just 2 2x10x12's to make a bed. The final size is 3'x9' which we find to be perfect, you an reach both sides very easily for carrots, strawberries, raspberries and the like. When it melts off I will take a better picture for you.

[ruiter]

Here in Holland we do it in the following way
take wood to make the container as big as you want
when the container is ready put plastic on the bottom and walls
than rockwool slabs the hard wans the have to be around 10 cm thick
on top of that jou put the ground
the mineral wool ensures that there is no drought and one need less watering in summer
the plastic alouws grass not to grou throu
greatings

[Modern homesteader]

I have plenty of rough sawn poplar for free I have thought about using. It's not treated of course so I was hesitant to waste time with it. The treated lumber would cost so much that I wondered if it was even worth using. If it lasts 10 yrs it would be worth it.