Does Newspapers Prevent Weeds?

If you have been gardening for a while, one thing you will notice and quickly annoy you is weeds growing into your plants and crops. One day your garden is look neat, organized and beautiful and the next day you have these weeds taking over your garden causing you to have to take time out of your busy day to remove them.

Don’t get discouraged any longer as I have a cool tip for you. Newspapers! Yes, that’s right. By using newspapers in your garden you can get rid of weeds once and for all. Before you start asking yourself if this method is safe for the environment, the answer is yes. There are no chemicals involved that will cause health problems for you or your family. The newspaper is perfectly safe for the environment and will biodegrade into the soil in time allowing the roots to penetrate and soil microbes to pass through.

Is Newspaper Safe For Gardens?

Not only is it safe for the environment, it will fertilize the soil, cool the roots of the plants and crops during the summer days. Earthworms will be doing their job beneath the mulch, tilling the ground and adding worm castings, which is euphoria for your plants and crops.

The best part about this is that it is cheap and extremely easy to do! All you need to do is go down to a local store and ask to get some newspapers from their recycling bin and they will be more than happy to help you out. From here grab some organic mulching materials like grass clippings, pine bark, chopped-up leaves, straw or whatever you would like to use.

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How To Mulch Using Newspaper

Once you gather all your materials, find the weeds in your garden and lay the newspaper down over the weeds. If the weeds are tall you can just step on them so they are flat before laying the newspaper over them. Make sure you are using anywhere from 5-10 newspapers thick. From here grab your garden hose and lightly water the newspaper so the wind doesn’t blow it away. You can also lay some mulch down on it as well.

A little tip is to make sure you are not using any “glossy” pages from the newspaper as it will take longer to breakdown and not to mention the ink might contain some mild toxins.

Once the ground is completely covered add a nice, thick layer of mulch over the newspaper (about 3-4 inches so if the winds get a little crazy out there, they won’t pull the pages up).

That’s it! Once you are done laying the mulch, your garden should look nice and neat and will stay that way for a long time.

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Brian Reintgen

Co-Founder of J&B Lawn