Opinions on veggie garden walkways - need help

[Life is Good!]

Our veggie garden consists of (8) 8'x8' square raised beds. Between the beds, we left grass as there were/are many projects to attend to. When the garden was started 8yrs ago, I had put cardboard down over the grass in the beds to kill the grass and prevent weeds. Then filled the beds with the topsoil we removed from building a house. Topped it off with home-made compost and some potting soil.

Fast forward to this year (and last too). The grass from the walkways is invading the raised beds. I'm pretty tired of pulling zebra grass roots and other grass roots out of the edges of the beds, just to have them break off at the walkway (where it goes under the wood). I'd much rather be pulling weeds elsewhere on the property than in my veggie garden!

So, I'm committing to putting down an alternative walkway material. I'm not interested in wood mulch, as that gets into garden shoes and is painful! I'm leaning towards a gravel (driveway is gravel, and could use a top-off) or other small rock material. Opinions are welcome - as I'm in northern Illinois and don't wish to bake my veggies in the summer heat, but could use a material which is durable and doesn't promote splinters!

How should I best kill off the grass quickly? Cardboard again? Round-up and then cardboard? (I hate chemicals and don't use anywhere on the property except the worst of the thistles in the driveway - but will make an exception due to the size of the garden).

I'm having analysis paralysis - so many options and cannot figure out which is better. Thanks for your input!

 

[erinszoo]

We put down cardboard in our walkways. They are easy to replace when they get worn. Hate bark and gravel gets in my garden clogs even worse than the bark.

 

[chickbythebay]

I wold not put round up in my yard. I was thinking of using a gravel for my walkway but haven't done it yet, but think it would be very pretty. If money were no object, I'd use flag stone.

 

[foskco3]

If you know anyone that has connections with a local rock quarry you can pick up stones that are beautiful but didn't quite make the cut to palletize and wholesale (scraps) so to speak and it usally looks nice if u lay them with pea gravel between them

 

[flgardengirl]

you can use cardboard or thick paper. I go to sam's club and they have these large sheets of cardboard that they use in between the soda or other sports drinks when they stack them. These are perfect to cut into long wide strips and lay down on the garden paths. I also use the boxes that the hot wings and cheese etc comes in for temporary or extra nest boxes...so many good things to reuse/recycle lol. I know some gardeners who get coastal hay and use that as mulch between the plants and on the pathways.

 

[TLWR]

I have pea stone between my raised beds. I'd honestly prefer mulch in there I think. I'm not a fan of the rock. The crushed concrete we have in the driveway might not be a bad choice.
If I was still in NY, I'd go with shale.


We also put down cardboard and paper and the grass grew right through it (and 2' of clay, compost, dirt, pine straw).
I just used some roundup on the grass in the garden path, I pulled what I could and 2 weeks later it looked like I never even bothered.

 

[foskco3]

Sounds like you have resilient grass, haha if there is room fora tiller try tilling for a few weeks and being very vigilante about any new growth than lay down your cardboard, mulch, etc
This should help turn the roots into minced meat

 

[flgardengirl]

Do you have access to pine needles? You can lay down newspaper, then lay pine needles down on the pathways. Our garden centers sell them in bales for mulching purposes. I am lucky that I can just go into the acres of woods behind our house and get all I want.

 

[Cherterr]

I agree with the tilling option above.

My (short notice) 'back to eden' plan was an epic fail.. grass took over the wood chips. SO.. I went crazy, bought a brand new (never had a new one) Roto Tiller and went to work. NOW I'm making walkways of just dirt for now. Leaving my options open for re tilling later if grass comes back or ? changing the bed sizes, etc.

(I'm sq. ft. gardening without the raised beds, wood, etc. Just making fewer paths.)

ALSO.. you could try those little forms for quick crete. The finished product looks like cobble stone, is cheap and you should put some landscape cloth under it. The prettiest one I ever saw had Irish Moss planted between the 'stones'. You could use sand, pebbles, etc.

 

[gigi310]

We installed pea gravel walkways between our raised beds at our last house. We poured the gravel over landscape fabric (run under the beds, too) and it was nice to walk on, looked very pretty, and didn't bake our plants. (We were Zone 7.) After a year, though, the landscape fabric failed and we had to start weeding the gravel, so you might want to research a better weed block. Another downside to gravel walkways is that they kill off your worm population, so you might have to replenish the worms every so often in your raised beds. My kids constantly added worms to the beds, so I didn't notice this effect. Another thing you might want to do is to add 4" high metal edging to the perimeter of the gravel to hold it in place. It tends to spread and then get flung about by a lawn mower. Hope this helps.