Carpet Weedkiller?

As we work on our garden, we read or hear about ideas that have worked well for others and are eager to try these things. I am not sure that all of these are GOOD ideas, but since this is the 'show me' state, we like to see these things for ourselves.

Steve (friend with much more gardening experience) told me about a house he recently worked on, a very nice house that belonged to an old woman who'd passed away. The garden space was covered by old carpet, and at first Steve could not understand why anyone would do such a thing. Ugly outdoor patio area? Garden as landfill? He removed the carpet and saw the rich, weed-free soil underneath, and realized this must have been this old-timer's way of prepping for the following season.

I was especially excited about the idea of using old carpet. We'd pulled up some nasty carpet from our house when we first moved in. It was part of our 'greening' up the house efforts, but I knew that carpets were a major issue in landfills and wasn't looking forward to being part of the problem. With this new idea, I could put the carpet to work AND keep it out of the landfill. Happy days.

But now, I am concerned. Since carpets leach toxins (one of the reasons they are a problem in landfills) it’s possible that our carpet is doing just that, right now, in our vegetable garden! How will I know if my soil is safe? I am hoping it will be okay, especially after we add the layers, but I would hate to think our effort to do something green turned out to be really, really brown.

I asked for help in the ever-entertaining “I Dig My Garden” forum on the Baker Creek website, and got a wide range of suggestions and helpful (and not as helpful, but funny. High heels? Oh, it does digress there) advice. Ultimately, though, I don't think anyone knows for certain. I will probably remove it, just to be safe. After all, we will be topping all of this off with cardboard, newspapers, leaves, compost and soil in the Spring.

Review ('08) Surprise Crops

Not everything in our garden was intentionally planted there by us. Some things just came up on their own, like magical presents from the goddess of the garden. Or something like that.

Cantaloupe (approx. 8 vines) The best of these was the cantaloupe. It just sprung up all tight in a bunch, and I suppose it came from the improper composting we were doing. (See, rather than make a heap, we thought to ourselves “Why not just place the organic matter on the ground where it will go in the end anyway?” It probably would have worked if we'd generated a great deal more organic matter, but as it was, a thin layer of waste topped a section of yard that would eventually become the site of our garden.)

We transplanted it to the same row as the cucumber, and it grew and spread and was amazing. The fruit was no bigger than a softball, a single-serving of cantaloupe. In retrospect, sharing the row with cucumbers was probably an unwise move, as the cantaloupe seem to have cross pollinated with the cucumbers, giving them a slight cucumber flavor. Still, free cantaloupe, and they were carefree.

Onion (2?) Unplanted onion also came up, and not that chumpy kind that grows in your yard accidentally, no! This onion was big, no doubt some kind of growth from the pseudo-compost layer. Sadly, we lost track of it, and once we came back from our trip, signs of the plant were gone, so I don't know if they were any good.

Nigella (2 plants) Near the house, in a bed I have not tended, this weird, wonderful flower grew. It was hard to find out what it was, but eventually I did. Nigella. I saved some of the seeds and plan to plant a bunch of it next year. What a cool plant. It has this strange, double-decker flower, kind of like a passion flower, only smaller, and the leaves are thin and fern-like.

Weeds (several) Two other plants, a beautiful flower and a beautiful grass, sprouted up. The flower was like a morning glory, white with bright magenta edges. It twined around the tomato stakes and I loved seeing it there. The grass was a triangular stemmed thing, with beautiful spear leaves, kinda like a spider plant. It was so pretty. I let both of these plants stay. Turns out that was a mistake, because after reading an article about the peskiest weeds, I learned that my beautiful morning glory was actually bindweed, the strangler of garden plants. And my pretty grass was yellow nutsedge, an invasive weed that is difficult to get rid of. Unless you have pigs. Which we don’t.

So I nurtured these two weeds, and will, no doubt, be seeing them again next year. It isn’t a total wash, though. The nutsedge, it turns out, creates underground tubers that are used by some cultures as food. “Chufa”, it’s called, and apparently it can be roasted and ground and turned into a delicious drink. Looks like we will know for sure next spring.