"nswong" wrote in news:2kmu92F40g95U2@uni-
berlin.de:

Hi Salty Thumb,

I start learnning agriculture by year 2001, that is after I went back
to my hometown and deal with my land.

In my learnning progress, I do read a lot. Most of the articles I read
are contrary with other articles. And it's hard to test it up who are
correct.

I do read before from some articles that talk about the views bring up
by you. But for going to sustainable and without bring in external
input(landscape fabric), I tend to remember those comment that say bad
words to landscape fabric. g

I'm not reach the level to able to tell which one are correct by now,
but will grad to find it out if it does not cost too much of effort.
Since I will not going to use landscape fabric, if you can share your
personal experience with me(not those you read from), I'm grateful to
this. :-)

Here are the previous times I have babbled about landscape fabric:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...=be1qe0%24e9q%
241%40plonk.apk.net

http://groups.google.com/groups?
q=landscape+fabric+chives&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=%
25HD4c.99646%246K.92016%40nwrddc02.gnilink.net&rnu m=1

I don't think it is a matter of what is 'correct' but what is the best
solution to a given problem. I'm also not an expert to say for sure, but
for your operation, extensive mulch seems a better idea, and more
practical. I don't generate enough vegetation to be able to supply
myself with mulch or significant amounts of compost, so I use newspaper
or fabric. Since I do not add amendments, I find fabric better suited.
Additionally, were I to add amendments, I find sliding large pine bark
nuggets aside and lifting the fabric (feeder roots smeeder roots) an
easier procedure than raking aside mulch that is possibly conmingled with
newspaper and soil debris. If I were to use short term mulch (i.e. not
as long lasting as large pine bark nuggets), newspaper might be a better
idea, as I could just mix everything together and enrich the soil
structure by doing so. With the fabric, aesthetically, I do not have to
use as much nugget mulch to cover what could be unsightly newspapers.

Having reviewed some of the older messages about landscape fabric, if
you're going to grow vegetation that will eventually spred over a flower
bed (making removal of landscape fabric more difficult), it really
doesn't make sense to use long term weed suppression, as once
established, theoretically, the vegetation should be effective in
limiting weed growth to acceptable levels. Certainly in this case you
would want to use something that degrades, replacing as necessary until
the relevant plant is established and doing its own weed control, the
exception being if said vegetation will die back in the winter, in which
case you can plan your amending accordingly and/or resign yourself to
using short term suppression or other methods.

I'm going off to my land now, will reply you when I'm back.

Okay.