Use those old newspapers! They have a tendency to pile up anyway until you send them off to the recycle bin. Well, recycle them yourself in your vegetable or flower garden.

Expensive landscape cloth works fine and so do herbicides. In fact spending hours on your knees pulling weeds works too (that is, if you don’t have a Titan Weeder). But really, if you have newspaper, and who doesn’t with all the free papers lying around, use it to keep weeds out of your garden. It’s especially easy if you have vegetables planted in rows.

Here’s how:
Use several sheets of newspaper just as you would landscape cloth. I like 3 or 4 sheets of paper – the more you use the less likely the weeds will come through, but also the less likely water will penetrate it. So make sure the plants have access to plenty of water without the space the paper will take. Drip systems or irrigation works just fine. Cover the paper with soil, mulch or compost – something that will hold the paper down and allow it to decompose naturally. With enough paper you can block the weeds for two or three years, but I always till in my newspapers at the end of the season and let it decompose for the next spring. Even if you don’t till, eventually the newspaper composts into the soil.

Also, run old newspaper through your paper shredder and add it to your compost pile. It will turn to compost within a few weeks. Inks are now made from soy so their chemicals won’t harm the groundwater or the soil.

Reduce, re-use… RECYCLE!