[Salmo]

Watch out for new lawns being laid. Ask for the offcuts. Make a jigsaw on your path and pat it down tight. Does not matter if there are spaces as they will infill. When I asked there were two whole rolls left over so some of my path is posh. I have also made paths by using edgy bits when trimming lawns in the same way.

[Steve.P]

As has been said, grass for an allotment path will need mowing. It's not much of a problem for me as the plot is very close by. The up side with grass for me is that you only need to cut it when it gets too long, it does not have to look as neat as your lawn. And then you also have grass cuttings on hand for your compost heap. The main thing is, can you get your mower down to the plot.

[des]

Get some brick sets laid with lovely raised edgings for your beds, should be able to do the average lotty for a snip at around 7000 pounds.  

[crowndale]

I can vouch for the couch grass through the carpet!  And mine was only down as a temporary covering for around 9 months!  Plus carpet is supposedly banned on our site, yeah, right!  I am slowly paving my main path and will eventually pave paths between teh beds but am loathe at the moment as I have not yet settled on a permanent plan for the plot, its still in the mobile 'making up my mind' stage!  I have weed suppressant fabric under the slabs as well.

[scabs]

At first I fancied bark chippings, but the thought of the little beasties coming out and eating my crops is too much to bear. I was put off mowing grass paths, but am only minutes from my plot and quite like the idea of barefoot summers...

Slabs do seem the lowest maintainance option, but I can see it taking me ages to source enough for what is a reasonably large plot.

I suppose a chamomile path is a niaive dream?

[galen]

Chamomile - that's got me thinking now : corsican mint, creeping thyme.... I suppose they wouldn't hack the constant walking over though !

[scabs]

I always thought chamomile was quite resilient? Pretty costly to do all my paths though, I guess.

[NICK.STONE]

Roof tiles are a good option. if it saves a builder a skip they jump at the chance look around for them been done or take the number off houses that have been done and find out where there next job is.

[scabs]

Argh, someone was just offering a load of rooftiles on Freecycle. I've gone and deleted it now!

[Yorkie]

If you go onto the actual freecycle website for your group you'll be able to find the roof tile post there

[RGManby]

Just got 15 ton of 100mm screen hardcore for £180, putting old tarps under between beds to stop any growth, may get some 50mm screened to top it off in the future.
 The hardcore here is granite though and is really attractive, all blues, greys and greens .. will get some pics up when I get round to finishing it.

[Jozzer]

Discarded pallets for me. I have my whole plot organised in raised beds, grassed the pathways in between but found it was a pain in the grass mowing because of the difficulty in turnin the lawnmower round the corners in between the raised beds. Fortunately I have a limitless supply of pallets so I strip em down and nail them onto bearers with weed surpressant fabric underneath. Should have  the whole lot done in a couple of months

[Poolfield2]

I started with weed suppressing membrane but after a couple of years weeds came through in places (couch grass as mentioned above). Can't afford paving for such a large area and as mine is in the garden, I didn't fancy rubble. I have board edging around my beds to define the edges. Itook up the black membrane and most weeds had died under it, it was easy to level  and then planted grass seed, from a farm supply place. Covered it with membrane again and it germinated in 5 days. It doesn't take long to mow and I find it easy to cope with.

I'm making one of those roll out wooden pathways so I can get on paths ASAP.

[Sadgit]

my plot 35mx7m is one big bed there is a path between me and next door, but my actual plot will never have paths, etc. I can get Mr Rotorvator out and go over the whole plot and not worry about paths/beds etc.. I like the simple life