As long as it isn't the shiny/glossy paper, it's great! Wetting it down will help keep it in place, and you might need to put a heavier mulch over it to keep it from blowing away, but paper is a great mulch. It will decompose into the soil and bring in lots of earth worms. I use paper not only in my veggie garden, but also around shrubs & flowers. Also great in compost piles!

Here with our wind, I wouldn't think of it.

Dan

Works GREAT! #1 shredded paper (till you can't see the soil (when the shredded paper gets wet, it kind-of glues together, making it hard for the weeds to grow threw)
#2 then scatter loosely, straw/grass on top of shredded paper, (helps shredded paper hold moisture in soil). repeat steps #1 & #2. then hope it rains, or wet down good.

I used to use tons of shredded newspaper to mulch strawberries in late fall. I'd wait for a rainy day to put it down and there was minimal littering but then I'm located in a country setting.

The two great things about the paper are that there are absolutely no weed seeds to spread to the garden and slugs were nonexistant.

In our state livestock farmers are always looking for free newspaper to use as bedding. If you would compost the paper with cattle manure you wouldn't even notice it as litter.

Thanks for posting this question. I hope you don't mind that I piggy back with one of my own..

Regarding using newspaper , I use newspaper as well but I don't shred. Should I shred it instead?
I was wondering about that last night and whether or not solid sheets of newspaper will interfere with using natural fertilizers such as bonemeal.

Don't mind the piggy-back question at all. This is all such good information to have!

Agree. I'm tried tearing up newspaper for some seeds I planted. I hope they can grow through it.