This year I’m trying the cardboard groundcover strategy in my raised beds as an experiment. Last summer I gathered cardboard boxes - with the lockdown going on and getting stuff shipped to me that was easy.
In the fall when the garden went fallow I turned over the soil and then covered it with the cardboard. This spring, instead of having an intensive session of hoeing and weeding to prep the plot for planting I was able to go straight to planting by poking holes where I wanted my starts to go.
I still have some weeding to do - mostly along the seams between the pieces of cardboard. But there has been 1/10th the amount of effort as in past years. The cardboard is isolating my veggies from the weeds and concentrating the water I give them.
The cardboard also breaks down naturally. Just don’t use stuff that has a lot of slick graphics and remove stuff like shipping labels. This fall I’ll strip the old cardboard off, turn and amend the soil, and lay down new cover.
I covered it with netting (deer love melons) and did soap chips along the boundary and center path. Got 40 melons.
I did use cardboard and newspapers in the path and covered with mulch. I called it the "No Weed" garden.