I have question regarding all of this. Today, my father and I cleaned 20 years worth of built-up sediment runoff from my house gutters. The roof is asphalt shingle, from 1996 and I don't believe the gutters have ever been cleaned until today. We had buckets of tarry black sludge, water and rocks that had unlodged from the shingles. When I wasn't looking, my dad decided to empty a few buckets worth of the liquid portion to reduce the weight. He didn't strain the liquid, he just poured off the top, so it was black nasty tar-water. And guess where he dumped it? In his septuagenarian wisdom he dumped that black water into my veggie garden because it wouldn't be as visible, since the soil was also dark. I am pretty upset about it and felt he basically turned the center of my garden into a contaminated brownfield site. I stopped him from pouring the final bucket in there once I noticed what he was doing, but already several had gone in. I appreciate that he wants to help out, but I never wanted him here to do this job; he imposed on me, sort of telling me it needed to be done. Now I'm thinking about dismantling the garden, raking it out and seeding with grass and giving up entirely on the idea. I don't want to eat from it anymore. I'm also upset that I had just planted some things in there not too long ago. The smell was foul from the sludge and I had to wash my hands 5 times with various soaps and pummus to get the odour out. Surely the tar-sediment which built up from sitting for 20 years in gutters is carcinogenic and awful for anyone to ingest. Are my fears reasonable? Will that stuff wash away by summer, or will it be absorbed by the plants and maybe give me a tumour some 15 years down the road? I'll always look back to this episode if that does happen and I kept eating from that garden...

I use the layers of newspaper topped by shredded wood mulch or bark to make new beds (have done so with hostas and am working on a rosebed now).... it works great, just like Julie's variation in the garden with grass clippings. The grass clippings (or leaves) would be more suitable for use in a veggie garden. Mainly I just wanted to add that I found it worked as great for the hosta bed that I put in last fall as it did for Julie's veggie garden. I've added several plants to that bed this spring and the newspaper is mostly decomposed as is the grass that I put the newspaper right on top of. The ground is really nice under all that too, worked just great! I don't think that the shredded newspaper that you mentioned originally would work as well. When it gets wet, it mats down and makes a soggy mess (I know 'cause I threw a bunch of shredded newspaper that I received as packing material into the compost bin and that's exactly what happened to it there - great for composting but I don't think I'd want a layer of just that on top of my garden. Seems it would be more soggy mess then good mulch).

Hi! I've tried your method and have had wonderful success...so far. Last year we created a new flowerbed. We had poor soil with sparse grass. I covered the area with newspaper (but not thick enough! lol) and put mushroom compost on top. We also had some dirt brought in and place it on top of the compost. This has enriched the soil in layers. This year I am working with real soil but regret not making the layer of newspaper thicker. Last year I also used the mushroom compost directly to the top layer of soil around my plants. It seemed to dry out quickly and form a type of crust that would make it difficult for water to absorb thru the compost into the soil. This year I will mix the compost into soil before adding the plants to it....which is probably the "recommended thing to do in the first place". I'm not very "informed"....but I've tried it! We have a mushroom compost farm 2 miles from the house...easy access and cheap.

Probably covering it with the plastic delayed the decomposition, though unless leaves are ground up they can take some time to break down. That said, moving them aside and planting will probably work without a problem. It might take the soil a bit more time to warm up - though the black plastic should have taken care of that issue. Ruth Stout used to cover her entire veg garden with any organic matter she could get her hands on, and never tilled it - just added more mulch each year, pushed it aside to plant seed or seedlings, and pushed it back around the plants once they were up. (The Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book) -Rosalinda