I film and produce a cable access show here on Long Island that is all about Organic gardening and cooking demos on how to cook the harvest. Here in the garden, we do not use carpets since it attracts rodents who love to build their nest under that nice warm material in winter. I am not sure about whether any chemials would leach out, but I wouldnt want to take the chance. There are some gardeners who use black plastic and I wonder about the chemicals in that also. Why not find someone who shreds those beautiful Vermont fall leaves and use them as a mulch? You can also use compost, grass clippings, wood chips, or as a fellow Vermonter Ruth Stout suggests: salt hay. All of these mulches help to improve the soil. I hope to have a gardening website up soon. Hope you will visit.

Here is a link that might be useful: the good garden

There are a couple of active threads on the GW Vegetable garden forum on this subject. A lot of pros and cons being offered. Mostly cons. I recomend checking them out.

Kay.

I used old carpet once as mulch. The weeds grew through it and anchored it firmly to the ground! It's one of those things that SHOULD work, but don't.

Rosieo, do you know what kinds of weeds you had growing through it? I have fairly thick pile, newer carpet that I'll be replacing with laminate flooring, I wanted to use the carpet on my paths as a weed smother, with wood chips over the top, but not if the weeds will get through anyway!

Weeds go right through almost anything. I hate plastic or anything that doesn't decompose. It lingers for years. Carpet will also provide a place for the slugs to hide.

I prefer to use leaves, cardboard, newspaper, straw, or anything that will breakdown and nourish the soil. An occasional poke with a rake will help to keep the weeds down. If the mulch is thick enough, any weeds will easily come out.

I don't know what kind of weeds they were. Probably mostly grasses. The backing isn't a solid material and every tiny hole allows a tiny shoot to grow through, then when it hits the top of the carpet (or the bottom if it's upside down) the weeds expand horizontally to cover the top. Then when you realize it doesn't work and try to remove it, it's stuck tight. I used the carpet two layers deep and even that didn't work. It's simply too "porous."

I have had very good luck with cardboard and also with about 8 layers of newspaper. I wet the newspaper to make it easier to work with. Then I cover the paper with mulch to keep it from blowing. Our local paper gives away the end rolls free for the asking. My husband can get tons of shredded paper from work and that also worked great. When wet it mats down and was fairly easy to work with.