I have a large, neglected vegetable garden, smothered in weeds. I plan to scrape off all the topsoil and build raised beds. What are your recommendations for weed control between the beds? Is layering newspaper, thickly, between the beds before adding a path cover a good idea? What about fabric cloth? What do you recommend as an easy to walk on path material? Pea gravel, barkmulch, shavings, or? I'd like something easy to maintain, esthetically pleasing and not turn in to mud on our rainy west coast. Thank you.
As a student, I trialed newspaper and cardboard mulches to use for weed suppression and both were deemed effective. I found cardboard worked well and was safe to use if the tape and staples were removed and we used cardboard with little ink on it(unless it was vegetable inks). We laid it all down and covered it with bark mulch. Five years later, and not a single weed has poked through. Cardboard is easy to come across in bins, easy to cut up to shape around the beds and works well.
Landscape cloth with a heavy covering of wood chips should do it; the fabric won't last forever, but it will supress growth on the paths for a while, and the chips will take care of the rest. Cardboard and newspaper works, but creates the potential for worse problems: voles and slugs like to use it as shelter, and you're essentially providing them with an ideal habitat adjacent to your beds.