I am wondering if the plants did not do well because of poor drainage due to the very thick paper? With 8 inches of soil you would think that there would be pretty good room for roots of many vegetables. If you think it is a drainage problem, consider boring down holes through the paper. I could imagine some type of huge nail (Railroad or other industrial nail??) and a sledgehammer⦠boring holes at maybe 6 inch intervals?? Just throwing out a wild idea as I have never heard of someone as crazy as you laying down that thick of a newspaper base (I am totally joking here⦠long day LOL) I hope you can get it growing well this summer without tearing it up! --Rachel

I spent a few minutes considering possible ways of overcoming this. Every idea was as much or more labor than digging the paper out and starting over. Even if you find a plant that can penitrate the paper,it would still be a few years until bed is in good condition. I would scoop the soil off at one end and remove the paper. Scoop soil off next section into section where paper was removed. Working from one end to the other in that fashion requires handling soil only once. Top the bed off with good soil and start a compost pile with paper. The reason paper is taking so long to rot is lack of air. Wood fence posts rot much faster at ground level than 8" and deeper for that reason.

Covered by 8 inches of soil there will not be much air, and therefore not much aerobic activity, so the paper is not going to be digested anytime soon.

May I share my own overboard paper mulch story?

I was living on the edge of the Chihuahua Desert, my yard very crusted over and compacted from years of people parking on it. But the puncture vine (goat heads), wild mustard, purple asters, thistles, pig weed, etc., loved it.

I had two special problem areas, one under an expanded metal deck, and one between a chain link fence six inches back from some cattle panel.

I found out that the local border patrol office threw away dozens of garbage sacks of shredded paper every week.

I wanted to make a layer to shade out the weeds, and another layer to feed desirable plants on top, so I planned to spread the shredded paper to cover well, and then pile up lots of wood chips and compost on top of that.

To keep the shredded paper from blowing around, I wet it really thoroughly. I ended up with portions of my yard that looked like paper mache snow. I thought I was so smart and edgy.

Then a fellow green party member came by and told me I had just mulched my yard with plastic fiber and dioxin residue. After finding some articles online to this effect, I scooped up my moon scape and took it to the landfill.

Later I found out that the acid from compost and mulch made it easy to pull up all the puncture vine.

But now I am wondering. I come across lots of current articles that say paper and cardboard are good for compost and mulch. Should I have proceeded with my original plan?

To the OP: If you want to try it w/o removing all of it, I would suggest breaking through the paper in spots as suggested. Either dig small holes or drill through it. This would let soil and worms into the layers as well as letting excess moisture drain through.

ponty: The issue of dioxin residue in paper is overblown, in my opinion (as an env. chemist working for the public, not industry). Even if there was significant dioxin in that paper - and I am not saying there is - it is extremely sticky to organic matter and would not be mobile or absorbed by plants. Not sure what the 'plastic' comment is even referring to.

Edit:

The type of bleaching that produces dioxins (chlorine bleaching) has been reduced from 90% of the paper pulp worldwide to less than 20% since 1990, due mainly to the toxics issue. It has been replaced with more benign types of bleaching. So that problem has not gone away entirely but is on its way out. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleaching_of_wood_pulp

This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Tue, Jun 24, 14 at 17:28

The plastic may refer to the clear windows in envelopes which would be part of office paper disposal. Some of the windows are plastic, others are glassine which is cellulose derived and biodegradable.

Ref: What Happens to Staples, Twine, and Window Envelopes in Paper Recyclables?

Claire

I want to thank everyone for their input. I went ahead and dug out all the paper -

I will think twice before doing that again.

I do not know if the paper contributed to the less than bumper crop of okra last year but I figured I'd never know unless I just went ahead and dug it all out.

I hope it doesn't stop you from trying other things in your garden. The majority of dedicated gardeners have somthing new in the works all the time. Just experiment on a small scale while putting most resources into tried ,tested and proven.

I would have just soaked the paper good and used a bulb auger to make holes