IrelandDragonQuilting

I use the newspapers on the bottom, since you are planning on 10-12 inches of soil on top of the weeds, if you put the newspaper down and put the soil on top they will die off and decay back into the ground giving your new plants food. I hope you take photos when you are done :)

Sunflower Quilter

We have built raised beds in Anchorage, Fairbanks and now Kansas (we are retired now!!) we put landscape fabric down in the first set of beds but didn't in the next two and have never had any problems. Currently we have both raised flower beds and vegetable beds the soil was added to the beds without any barrier between the ground and added soil and it works great. Good Luck

Baloonatic

Depending on the type of weed, if you can't get all the root it may grow back no matter what. A thick bed of mulch can help. If it is coming up from seeds, spreading a corn germ pre-emergent on the beds will prevent their germinating for awhile, and it breaks down to feed the soil. If you use it, you will need to prestart your seedlings as the pre-emergent will prevent your veggies from germinating too.
Depending on the weed type, a vinegar spray on young growth could be effective. If you want to use Roundup, you could use a foam paintbrush to apply it just to the weed leaves and not have to spray your whole garden bed. Use any herbicide when the offending plants are small and on a breeze-free sunny morning.
A few years ago, shortly after I had built a new fence, a new neighbor moved in next door. He relandscaped his entire yard, adding a raised bed in one corner. Having no idea that he was using my fence as the rear retaining wall, the soil contact rotted out the fence and created a freeway for termites to finish off the entire fenceline.
You can get a wealth of info here:
http://organicgardening.com/

cquilter2

I have used two layers of newspaper (not the color pages) and it's been several years and very few weeds.

Sprinkle the papers with water and then dirt. You can cut an x in the paper to plant through.

jad1044

If you could kill the weeds with some sort of spray - Round up is good, but don't let it drift to something you don't want to kill - but killing before teh weednetting is the best thing; then nothing should "grow through"... but use the weednetting, newspaper - mulch and plant through the holes; works great. and looks so neat.

You can catch overspray if you have a big box, bottom removed, you could set over an area to spray - flip the lid shut and leave it for a while - continue on down the area you want "dead" doing this over and over - keeps the spray from drifting. Allow a couple days before continuing with project.

butterflywing

we used a systemic poison. it goes down into the roots and kills he plant from there. we cut the weeds down, but left some stem ends exposed and just dabbed some on that. we covered up the stems with a plastic bucket and let it bake in the sun. we repeated that for a number of days. it killed the weeds and nothing else. you have to very careful not to let it touch anything you want to keep. the only other reliable alternative is to buy a goat.

Roberta

We built 6 raised garden beds. Under 4 of them we put one of those indoor-outdoor carpets that looks like grass. Under the other two we put landscape cloth and third year with no weeds coming up in the garden beds.

Olivia

My husband and I just finished two areas for feeding the birds, knock out roses and surrounded by boarder material. We put newspapers down to stop the grass, but too soon to report on results. Will keep an eye on the areas and will report.

ncredbird

When we built and moved into our new home I had the contractor save all the cardboard boxes that the appliances came in and we saved all the boxes we used for moving. When we did the landscaping I laid them down on top of the weeds and layered mulch and compost on top. There is actually a book out called "Lasagne Gardening" which is where I got the idea. You don't even need to take out the weeds just layer on top of them. The cardboard smothers the weeds and then decompose over several years. The contractor thought we were nuts but in an area that has heavy clay soil where things struggle to survive we have beautiful loose mulch full of happy worms to work with. You can probably find a copy at the library. It works beautifully for us and you can't see the cardboard when covered with the mulch. Ann in Tn

OrangeSherbet

My friend, a master Gardener, suggested:

1.) scrape off as much of the grass/weeds as you can. Don't sweat the rocks.

2.) cover the area with 10 (yes, 10) layers of newspaper paper. You can go to the newspaper office and ask for the end rolls of blank newspaper. I paid $1.00 for about 200 feet.

3. wet down the newspapers.

4.) mix 1/3 compost, 1/3 garden dirt and 1/3 sand.
Pour on the wet newspapers.

5.) plant seeds.

6.) eat food.