I save every cardboard carton that comes my way. This is another "Lasagne"part of laying out beds. The cardboard and method works for me. I tried newspapers and yes they work fine too, but I always had trouble keeping them in place before I could get the water to them.

c'mon over to soil, compost and mulch forum. Many folks use cardboard under the 'lasagna beds, or sheet compost beds.

One of those "obvious" tricks (obvious only once you think of them ;) when working with newspaper is to wet it *before* laying it down. I take a wheelbarrow to the worksite, fill it about 1/2 full of water and plop the paper in the water. You can go have lunch while it soaks or - if doing just a couple layers at a time - use the wetted paper within a minute or two. Because of the generous width of the barrow, I find it fairly easy to grab as much thickness as I want. Some folks use a 5-gallon bucket, which would be easier to transport. BTW, I learned this trick when working with shredded paper on a windy day... it wasn't chasing the paper scraps that activated the brain, it was the sudden spring shower that soaked the paper!

I did some beds once with newspaper. I used about 8 thicknesses. As I laid them down I immediately sprinkled them with the hose. Then when I was done I covered it with wood chips just to keep it all down and so you couldn't see the paper. It really worked great to kill existing weeds and keep new ones from coming up.

Last summer, we laid down 2 layers of cardboard on our hard-as-brick weed patch, and topped it with 8-10" of tree chippings (including leaves).

This spring, the cardboard is gone, the chippings are half the height, the adobe brick is soft and the earthworms are abundant.

We put in daffodils and they are blooming like mad.