Quite a few plotholders have been using woven black plastic landscape fabric to keep down weeds. If you use this, please ensure that the raw edges of this material are doubled under and held down by soil. Once the wind gets hold, the fabric flaps until it begins to unravel and yards and yards of plastic fibres are released. These are very dangerous to wildlife - easily entangling them and almost impossible to break - to say nothing of making a mess of the site.
Thank you for highlighting this problem - I use woven black sheeting on my plot, and it does unravel where cut very easily - and threads get caught in the strimmer from time to time if you get too close to the edges. I wonder if anyone knows of any non-woven alternatives which will do the same job?