Best Weed Barrier for Hoop House Floor ?

We are starting to prepare the site for our future hoop house, 20' x 40'.  What landscape fabric do you recommend for the ground cover (floor)?  I have tried various searches and have come away even more confused that when I started.  We are in Texas, by Galveston Bay.  Thanks for your help.

Cliff.

Hi Clifford,
I'm not sure that I would go with a weed fabric. I have seen too many issues with them in the past, where the weeds eventually poke through and it ends up being a mess if you ever need to change or move it.

If you are looking to clear the space and make a weed free area I would suggest a layer of cardboard followed by 6+ inches of woodchips on top. You may need to find a tree service who needs to get rid of a truckload... but this option would build some great soil while keeping the weeds down.

Nothing will keep weeds out forever... but this option, you can rake up and move if needed. You can add another layer if things start poking through. And it makes a mud free walking area too.

If you want landscape fabric, the heaviest widest you can find. Home Depot sells 13 foot wide fabric online. Dewitt sunbelt seems to be the longest lasting less likely to shed, really hard to find in the large size unless you have a good greenhouse supply local. Make sure to run it at least two feet wider and longer so you don’t have to string trim around the greenhouse.

Fabric is probably the best choice for growing in pots like for starts. If you are growing in the ground, I’d use something else, again a skirt so you don’t get weeds growing next to it and a few of the walkways. We used to use scrap conveyor belt but got it for free. Don’t do rocks!

I second the suggestion by Matt for wood chips.

For transplants just move the chips aside, dig a hole and pop in the transplant.

Over time the wood chips turn into soil and can be refreshed.

Not much can grow through cardboard and six inches of wood chips because most plants need sunlight to grow.

For permanent walkways on flat ground, I've used cement board.
It is pricey new in the store, I've gotten mine for less than six bucks at building supply surplus shops.

I would not use weed fabric. It is just forever trash that will inevitably get embedded in the soil. I have seen its results and dealt with it enough to believe it is counterproductive to soil biology and tilth. I generally have seen it result in the beautiful compost from leaf litter lying above and growing nothing but shallow rooted persistent weeds, separated from and unable to help fix compacted, lifeless and airless dirt below. The only place I would use landscape/weed fabric is in air pruned (off the ground) tree nursery beds to hold the soil in the hardware cloth frame. It also seems to make some sense for Johnson Su compost towers in arid climates.

I have also laid down indoor outdoor and rubber backed entry carpet on bare soil.
It definitely works, but plastic contamination from the carpet fibers is pretty much guaranteed.
Carpet stuccoed with cement used as a roof is  an idea from Alder Burns, here on this site.
I think it could work as a floor,  being essentially a composite material similar to ferrocement.

You have to first decide what the use of the space is, a greenhouse, that is a sheltered solar accessible footprint
for the growing and propagating of containerized plants or a high tunnel, a sheltered solar accessible space designed to grow plants in the soil contained in the footprint.  Being a commercial farmer I don't like trying to have one function as the other and vice versa, the greenhouse is permanent, I use the heaviest ground cover I can find This go around it came from HD and I doubled it, this after years of experimentation from sand to gravel to kd to pressure treated to concrete back to the given soil at the site with  ground cover over it. that being said the prep for it is important, every 3-4 years in the off time,  Dec to Feb, I pull back the ground cover till and rake out thoroughly, level and reinstall the cover. I grow plants in containers, flats, pots, barrels, what I've found is what most encourages weeds is poor water management (allowing water to spill onto the floor) and not keeping the exterior base of the house free of green growth allowing something to get under/beneath the greenhouse wall and in. The  standard I use is being able to walk around and work bare foot, warm, smooth, nothing that would hurt to be on for hours