Whatever is in your soil ends up in your plants. Unfortunately for gardeners who use landscaping fabric — a large, tarp-like sheet of plastic buried in soil — that means microplastics and chemicals can make their way into everything growing above it.
Nevertheless, gardeners still need solutions that will suppress weeds, which is what landscaping fabric purports to do. And to figure out how to do this in a safe, non-toxic way, one homeowner turned to the community of r/gardening to ask for advice.
"Best option for an [effective] landscaping fabric that is safe around food plants, preferably not plastic?" they wrote. "Trying to reclaim various parts of my yard for fruit trees, garden etc etc so…looking for something safe around, for example, a strawberry plant."
Basically, they summarized, they needed something that "won't leach microplastics."
Community members all had similar feedback for OP. "Use cardboard topped with mulch," one person advised. "Dirt will just build up on the landscaping fabric, growing weeds anyway."
Another agreed, sharing that landscaping fabric had been "ineffective at preventing weeds" in their own experience using it.
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Between leaching chemicals and failing to prevent weeds, landscaping fabric is generally seen as a no-go for gardeners. And for the ones who buy homes and are unlucky enough to find the fabric buried inches below the soil, it often means a long, arduous, and expensive removal process.
On the other hand, using natural solutions keeps your lawn and garden healthier while also being easier to apply and maintain in the long run. "One option to consider is weeding then deep mulch," one Redditor suggested.
The best part is that these natural solutions will make a yard healthy enough to grow food, like OP hopes And growing your own food offers a host of benefits: It can dramatically cut down on grocery bills, improve your nutritional intake, and even lower your stress levels.
If you want to get started growing your own food, check out TCD's guide here.
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If you were to switch from a grass lawn to a more natural option, which of these factors would be your primary motivation?
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