Using cardboard in the garden!
graciesavage
16 years ago
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graciesavage
16 years agocrankyoldman
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Cardboard safe in the vegetable garden?
Comments (22)http://www.adhesivesmag.com/articles/84472-packaging-enduser-starch-and-dextrin-based-adhesives This is a basic primer on packaging glues. Various further additives could include anti-fungals or some forms of viscosity and curing modifying compounds. A large draw for cardboard is the low cost and ease of use in the manufacturing adhesives, which means the more complicated and therefore more expensive the formula, the fewer uses a glue has in reference to finances. Without an msds for your specific product in your hands, it's hard to say for sure, however my non-chemical/medical doctorate holding guess would be fairly benign....See Moremy best friend is cardboard
Comments (11)I'm using cardboard as "carpet" in the rows between the wood-frame raised beds in my vegetable garden this year. I don't put anything on top of the cardboard; at first I was using a brick or two to hold it down but then I realized at some point that if I folded the boxes down so that they are a little wider than the path, they would hold themselves down, and once they get a little wet, they stay in place nicely. The best thing about using cardboard, to me, is that when squash, melon and bean vines creep over the edges of the raised beds, the fruit stays nice and clean on top of the cardboard. I use brown cardboard boxes that I get from work, so I wouldn't say it's at all ugly. In fact I think it's very attractive. No weeds, no mud, and as one piece of cardboard starts to deterioriate I just layer some more on top of it. I figure the worms must be in heaven underneath it all....See MoreHow long to compost cardboard?
Comments (16)Here's how I do it in a vegetable garden. I plant non-row plants---like tomatoes, peppers---and mulch around them immediately. I far prefer newspaper to cardboard. Newspaper sucks itself to the ground, cardboard slips around. Where I'm going to plant carrots or beets or spinach, row stuff, I either plant first and then snuggle my newspaper and upper mulches up to the row after the seedlings are up or I, sometimes, lay the newspaper down and leave a gap for seeding. The second method is harder. If you insist on rototilling, you would till prior to laying down your mulches. A lot of us (including me) are opposed to tilling, although I still have mixed feelings about it. Cardboard and newspaper degrade differently in different climates, but your goal with mulches is to keep them intact. Not you, but other people seem to think that the cardboard needs to degrade. On the contrary, the longer it stays intact, the more effective it is. Other people may do it differently. You're going to love a paper mulch, whatever you use, I can tell you that. Your weeding days will be over....See MoreLasagna garden question--cardboard?
Comments (9)Spent 3 days spreading cardboard and layered with cut grass, mulch (just enough to keep the cardboard from looking so bad), a little manure I had left from summer plantings etc. Can't wait till spring to see what I have. Have used newspaper many times, which, by the way is my favorite way to keep weed out. First time with the cardboard but I figured with a whole winter to activate it, It should be a wonderful new bed for Spring. My neighbors use to laugh when I went around the neighborhood and collected the newpaper on Monday (recycle day). Now they keep the papers for themselves and mulch on top of it. Its the absolute best method of keeping weeds at bay for the summer months. And of course it rots into the soil. Just mulch on top. Hope the cardboard works for both of us....See Morepnbrown
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