Re: " It is safe to use fabric as a liner for a vegetable bed? In other words, line the bed with it -- and then fill it up with soil. " I'm not clear on why this would be done. My interpretation of the original question was that the weed barrier was to be used on the sides of the bed, to keep the soil from sifting out through the gaps in the wood. I could see cutting weed barrier and stapling it to the sides of a wooden bed, with a few inches continuing onto the soil so that the soil doesn't sift out where the bed touches the ground, either. It's not how I would build a bed, but it seems reasonable. But if it covered the bottom of a bed, weed barrier would keep the plant roots from reaching down, and it wouldn't reduce weeds to any significant degree, because weed seeds would migrate to the soil above the weed barrier anyway. It might fight off tree roots for a year or two, but I suspect not for much longer. I say ll this as someone who uses weed barrier on top of the soil and plants annual vegetables through it, so I'm not opposed to weed barrier. (I lift it and amend between crops. The holes are at standard spacings that I use for a variety of crops. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be better to just weed, but I've come to accept that I don't weed.)

kidhorn - it sounds as if you live in a very humid area. Good for us all to remember that everywhere is different. Around here, the fire departments are trying to get everyone to not grow anything within FIVE feet of their houses, because of a worry about wild fires, even in dense residential areas. One nearby town actually passed a law requiring EVERY homeowner to put in 3 feet of CONCRETE all around their houses for the same reason (that will REALLY prevent stuff from growing!). However, when the folks started a petition to put a recall of the entire City Council of that town on the ballot (does your state have the "recall"? - very useful to get politicians' attention!), they backtracked and had to cancel that law. Jackie

A Mat, originally this alleway was fully concrete but the concrete was settling and eventually formed a "U" and water was pooling in the middle of it. Earlier on another contractor was suggesting remediating this by demoing and repouring concrete so it's graded away from the house and drains off to the side. After speaking with different contractors, all of whom indicated that adding drains in this area would present various challenges, it seemed like pouring concrete partially and leaving a foot open and filling with river rock (or whatever) would be a better way to provide relief and promote better drainage. So this is how we ended up deciding to do it this way. I still think we could probably add a grate drain but I'm not sure about the elevation, the pitch, if there is even any, is very minimal. As far as the area up against the house, yes cost was a factor but also appearance too. We don't want it looking too 'sterile' and wanted to eventually put wooden planter boxes in front of the windows too. We don't ever intend on walking or stepping much on the area where the DG would be against the side of the house either.

A few years ago i made some short raised garden beds. The next year i had to relocate them. I was shocked how many tree roots got into them in just one year! Recently i bought and assembled 3 19x40x80 raised garden beds. After researching whether to use landscap fabric underneath i decided not to. Then after remebering the tree roots issue I now want to use landscape fabric. Since normal fabric lasts 3 years and replacing it would be a huge job every 3 years im going to get a non toxic 20 year fabric to line the bottum. i appreciate any comments or suggestions Thank you