Now that things are starting to quieten down a bit, I want to have a blitz with weed fabric so I can reduce the weeding burden, which is well over the top at the moment. I've never really used it before, so have some questions that I'm hoping someone can help me with.
I've got a long bed of fruit bushes which is murderous to keep weeded. I'd really like to be able to put some weed fabric down all along this bed. I'll have to cut it for the standing bushes, but rather than doing a hole I was going to cut across and do an overlap, so I've covered right up to the stem of each bush. I'll then cover the whole thing with a mulch of manure or leaf mould or whatever I can find. What I'm aiming for is a semi-permanent weed barrier, so in future years I don't have to do anything but top up the mulch. Will this work? Will they get enough nutrition from a manure mulch sitting on top of the fabric? And what gsm of fabric should I go for?
I also want to put weed fabric on my 4'X8' veggie beds and plant through it, to minimise weeding. Should this be the same gsm or lighter? These beds will need more feeding than the fruit bushes, which I normally do through the growing season with BFB, but will that go through the fabric?
I also want to use the fabric on the broken up concrete that surrounds my veggie beds, which is currently infested with weeds. It will be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle cos I can't easily move the beds out of the way to do it, but it's the best I can do. I was then going to cover this with gravel. What gsm should this be?
And on the beds, do I still need to peg the fabric down if it's covered with a mulch, or will the mulch be enough to keep it in place? Obviously I can't peg on the broken up concrete, but the gravel should hold that in place.