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The Brooklyn Paper doesn’t just do a great job covering hard-hitting news and information — it also does a number on weeds!
Gardeners in Brooklyn Bridge Park are using our usually useless old issues, burying them under a thin layer of dirt to keep the grounds clear of unsightly growths.
Wetting sheets of the thin paper and covering them — a method technically known as “sheet mulching” — blocks sunlight from nourishing would-be weeds while still allowing other plants to breathe.
“It keep the weeds at bay — and because it is newspaper it decomposes naturally,” said Kara Gilmour of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, which oversees the gardening project. “It’s the perfect storm!”
Of course, even the best newspaper isn’t invincible — fallopia japonica, a pernicious Japanese pest, still manages to poke through the paper’s pages.
“Some weeds laugh in the face of newspaper,” said horticulturalist Rebecca McMackin.
But The Brooklyn Paper is a formidable foe for the park’s most irksome sprouts.
And, at the very least, we finally have an answer to the age-old question: “What good is yesterday’s news?”
©2011 Community Newspaper Group
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