I personally don't think it's too bad - you can scrape back a section at a time and use the "wet cardboard" OR I often use 2-4 sheets (pages, not sections) of newspaper. If you've got a pretty good amount of soil on top of that lay (deep enought to plant in) I would certainly have plants in there - if it were me!

Short answer, yes.
It may be that the weed seeds came with the soil. I had that happen once.
I seem to have a hard time finding cardboard, so I use roofing paper. It is easy to roll out. Then put lots of mulch on top of the soil.

Kathy what a great idea, I never would have using roofing paper. My son got some for his dog house he built I'm going to ask him if I can have it LOL.
Skitter, it all depends how much work you want to put into doing the job all over again. I think the easiest would be laying either roofing paper as Kathy said then mulch on top, plus doing it this way helps to keep any other seeds flying in the air getting into the bed.

Thanks so much, y'all! Here's what we ended up doing: we filled in the rest of the soil (we added 20 cubic feet total!), then covered with some landscape fabric (I couldn't find roofing paper at my local Home Depot), tacked it down, and mulched on top. We still have some mulch to add, but once it is all covered, it'll look great! My plan for planting is to just shove the mulch aside, cut a hole in the landscape fabric big enough for the rootball, and plant it in (then move the mulch back, of course!). And in the fall, I'll continue to build up the beds lasagna-style

I would have been paralyzed with indecision without all the good advice here -- I'm so glad I found y'all!

Do you have bermuda grass in the bed? One of the worst things I ever did was put landscape fabric on a flowerbed that still had bermuda grass. The grass came right up through the fabric and the mulch. I had to cut the fabric to get the grass out! I've never used landscape fabric since. Instead, I use cardboard or newspaper. Bermuda will still come through them but much easier to yank out.

If that doesn't work, you may need to "solarize" it with black plastic and a preemergent.

You might consider adding Preen or corn meal gluten to keep the next batch of weeds from germinating. I also would use layers of newspaper rather than landscape cloth. The weeds grow right thru the landscape cloth. The newspaper eventually breaks down to improve your soil.

Whew! After all that work, I did not want to be the one to give her the bad news about the weed block fabric. I did that once and it really was a mess.
Were it me, I would take out the fabric and put paper, or the roofing paper. Or blow my brains out! LOL.
Sam's sells butcher paper and that would work too. A tad heavier than news paper.

I do apologize for not warning you about landscape fabric.

Call around to lumber yards, they will have the roofing paper.

If there is anything that should be banned, it's landscape fabric! After all, if it causes some people to blow out their brains, it can't be good for us.

I'd scrape the dirt out too. It's a lot of work but the fabric is so much worse.

I'm not too sure I'd want to use roofing paper. Doesn't it have tar in it? It would probably work well, but would it be safe for the soil & not leach? Could water seep thru it? I'll stick with layers of newspaper & cardboard. Just my opinion. Paper always done a great job for me, I may get a few weeds on the outside edge & where I planted a plant, but thats all. I like to recycle.

Oh, dear . . . I've made not only one dumb move, but two, apparently! I'm off to go scavenge a bunch of newspapers so that I can fix it (again). I may have to do this secretly, though . . . after all that work, I have a feeling Hub won't be too keen to help me with it this time. :)

I have been using roofing paper for 10 years. It was a county ag agent that told me to use it.
Tar paper is also used to make plant collars to cut down on root maggots.

skitter, I don't know there are really any dumb moves in gardening. Just lots and lots of experimenting. Or, in this case, lots and lots of exercise that is so good for us.

HAHAHAHA! Very good point! And in the spirit of experimentation, I think I'm going to leave the one bed as it is (just finish mulching it) and see how it works out (and then remove the landscape fabric in the fall and start again), and use newspaper in the other bed (which didn't get anything but soil yet). I figure even if the landscape fabric ends up not stopping the weeds, it won't look any worse than it did before I started! One of these days I'll have to post before and after pics -- y'all will be appalled at how the previous owners left the place!

My grandson shoveled mulch today.

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