We thought about the leaching from the carpet, but compared to spraying herbicide or using plastic this seems no worse, and has the added benefit of keeping some more bulk from the landfill.

We only use wool carpet so the fibres will eventually rot away – also useful for putting around new tree seedlings to keep the grass at bay,

Your blog looks great – I’ll give it a proper look when I have more time, but I do like your reckoning of energy and waste.

Great blog! I’m finding lots of advice on how to get our garden started. This post, for instance!

We’ve been looking around for a cover like this to grow some of our veg and also to smother some weeds before we install our raised beds. And we’ve got lots of carpet in our basement from when we moved in… But aren’t you concerned about some chemicals leaching out of the carpet? Then again, if we use black plastic, it’s made of *plastic*, which is known to leach…. Aaargh, decisions!

Thanks for the idea. i think we’ll try it.