British Columbia: How to control invaisives around and under raised beds?

I cleared about 10 x 40 feet of snowberry and ivy from our south-facing side yard (man oh man that was hard work) and want to use this area for vegetable gardening in raised beds. We are in Victoria and I have my eye on some nice 3 x 5 cedar boxes which are raised 3 feet. My question is what to do with the ground. I've been told that landscape fabric will not stop invasive plants. I want something low maintenance and dry to walk on (? pea gravel), but how to stop ivy and snowberry from poking through? Your ideas are appreciated, so is your sympathy for the ivy weary. :-\

 

We did a similar project, but for a small greenhouse.
We used the heavy duty landscape fabric. It is thicker and is a woven synthetic material. The lighter one (soft black fabric type) will not work aswell.
You can sometimes find the heavy one sold by the yard, or in a prepackaged roll.
We cleaned up the area first and put down the material and then covered it with gravel chips. It has been in for 5yrs now and has worked well for us.
We did not want to treat the ground with a herbicide as we have pets and where using the area in part for vegetables.
I hope this helps.

 

Thanks Charles, We also have a dog and my husband has cancer so no herbicides for us. I've attached a pic of the area alongside the driveway. Would you take some dirt away first before laying down the landscape fabric? Also did the gravel chips not cut into your fabric? I've read that this can be a problem. Should also mention that, as it stands now--an expanse of dirt--we seem to have created a poop centre for all the neighbourhood cats, so whatever we end up with on top of the landscape fabric it must discourage cats.

 

Akimbo,
I would think relatively level, especially where your raised beds will be going. If they are premade ones that you purchase this may be necessary. Having it perfectly level in the area surrounding it I wouldn't think would be a problem. If you want the ground level when finished (with the gravel or other) to be the same as the driveway then this would be something to keep in mind.
The gravel chips are quite fine and they look abit dirty (silty) when we got them, but once watered in they became clean. The idea was that they would pack and knit together. I could not say without digging down to say that there has been any issues with wear or tearing. We put down 3-4" atleast, could have been more.
They are definitely not the large 3/4" crush, I believe they call them.
One could probably go with a thick layer of bark mulch, but preferably the coarse stuff, not the fine pulverized type.
I don't believe the cats would enjoy gravel too much, usually like something soft and loose.
I could see the fabric wearing in a very high traffic area, with alot of heavy weight.
Sorry to ramble.