Is Cardboard Mulch A Bad Idea?
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
- In this video I review a number of arguments suggesting that using cardboard as a mulch for vegetable gardening is a bad idea.
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The voice of reason. In 2020 i started watching gardening videos. I drove myself crazy following "the rules". I wasn't enjoying gardening anymore, so i went back to commom sense, and am now enjoying it once again!
Love that!
Thanks Greg! I’m so tired of the cardboard debate coming up. I’m all for the purist form of gardening possible, but people make their lives so much harder and more expensive trying to avoid absolutely anything that is man made. We love to use our cardboard here in Maine, what else are we going to do with all those amazon boxes?! 😅😊
Amazon caught onto that and makes their packaging, including the tape, safe to use this way!
This is your best episode ever. My 20+ years of gardening with cardboard and scrap plywood concur
The worrying is more detrimental to your health than the "chemicals". I use tons of cardboard
In earlier times we chemists developed glues that were very cheap and very toxic. Cardboard in cardboard boxes were constructed using these glue. NOW HOWEVER those glues are a thing of the past. Most cardboard is now made from glues that biodegrade very easily in soil. There are some problematic cardboard boxes - those with plastic and those with brightly coloured designs on them (for example boxes that LCD TVs often come in). Remove tape, staples and discard brightly coloured boxes and that’s all fine for mulch. Great video Greg.
As the cardboard breaks down worms can actually eat it which is a good thing - result worm "castings". I also have discovered that the tape will not break down. Like you, I just pick it out. Thanks for a great video!
Farther down you'll see a comment where a poster said worms ate their cardboard, all except the ink. You have to ask yourself why that is.
Excellent rant! I wish I had more cardboard to smother the goutweed on my property!
Wet cardboard is the best slug trap ever. Last year in Nova Scotia I put down cardboard to suppress creeping buttercup around my 4 small raised beds. And then it rained for about 3 months. . Every night the slugs came and ate my vegetables until I only had one cucumber and one zucchini left and few brassicas. After a week I checked the weeds under the cardboard and found it full of slugs, sleeping off their nightly feasts on my seedling s.. So every day after that I checked under the cardbaord and despatched about 100 slugs a day. It made a huge difference and some plants grew again. And the cardboard attracted 3 red backed salamanders also and they eat slugs. Absolute win win situation , by far the best slug trap there is. You have to weigh the cardbaord down as he wind may blow it away.
Totally agree with you. Actually I work at a restaurant and I get free food grade containers to do container gardening, I can get free large boxes. In turn the restaurant only pays for pick up when bins are full so they save a little money. Looking forward to your next vid❤❤❤
Thanks
i use it and have for 40 years without any issues!
You are the best garden myth buster ever! I have an unlimited supply of cardboard and after 20 years of gardening am just starting to use it. I have been told so many "don'ts" over the years and have been quite gullible, but now thanks to you I research everything or....I just watch your videos. Thanks so much!
So nice of you
I have been using cardboard for years in my garden as a mulch; I cover my beds for the winter with cardboard and leaf bags to protect the soil. What happens to the so called chemicals when we add cardboard to our composters. There are more chemicals to worry about in the fertilizers we use. I have used pickets off fences with some remains of paint still on them; I'm still here!!😀
I probably be expanding my garden a little this summer and I'm planning on putting cardboard down, then topsoil and finally wood chips and letting it sit next winter before planting in it next year. I've been using cardboard for years and not scared of it.
Some people will make an issue out of the simplest item, I often use cardboard. And even put newspaper in the compost!
I go through the same thought process as you did in this video. One more facet: what inputs (that you don't even know about) did the farm use when growing the vegetables you buy at the supermarket?
Most molecules get broken down by something. Even the persistent herbicides like aminopyralids are consumed by a tiny fraction of soil organisms, particularly Actinomyces or Actinobacteria (they keep changing names) though it may take a few years. PFAS / forever chemicals and plastics are probably exceptions.
You are so reasonable. 😊 Thanks for another great video. 🌱🌷
I'm following your "cardboard is just woodchips" philosophy on my new garden this year Greg, this video was really helpful in showing the size you cut the cardboard to, so thanks! It's sad that some folks get spooked by cardboard's "industrial" reputation, but it really does the job well for no cost.
One year (about 9 years ago), when I was creating new beds on hard packed clay soil, I laid down cardboard right on top of the clay (it had been a field of cow corn the year before) and then I laid potatoes directly on top of the cardboard before covering all that with a layer of very old hay to hold moisture and create a medium in which the potatoes could grow. I was new to this method so my ignorance caused me to do it this way but I learned something interesting from it. I should have put much more hay over top. It was a dry summer and that fall when I pulled what remained of the hay off to reveal my crop of potatoes I was amazed to find hardly any cardboard left. I think there were 3 small scraps of cardboard left from what was originally about 100 square feet of cardboard covered potato bed. The clay soil was still hard packed and relatively smooth with a few deep cracks and few of the potatoes were able to grow INTO the soil. The few that were actually in the ground had to be carefully pried out. The others were on top of the soil like separate small piles of rocks. They were nice clean potatoes but I'd never seen potatoes grow like that before. Another amazing thing was that when I pulled back the hay to reveal the still smooth clay soil was to find that even though the cardboard had been almost completely consumed by the worms the ink printing on the cardboard had not. It was stuck onto the smooth surface of the clay as if it had been printed there. It was in reverse of course but it was still clear and easily readable.
Sometimes worms have more sense than people.
Amen. My take on it is that the benefit of eating fresh food from my garden (not to mention the exercise and benefits to my mental health) far outweighs the slim chance that eating food grown in decomposed, plain, brown cardboard. There are countless higher risk issues that are far more worth my concern.
Great video. I am new to your channel. Love your garden.
I use cardboard in my garden and in my wormery. The worms love cardboard.
Like you, I use cardboard as part mulch layer in the garden. And often layer other types mulch on top. Using whatever mulch I have access to at the time. It's all about using what is available to each of us, in our local areas.
Thank you for a video filled with logic and sanity!
He told us to do research before rejecting cardboard, but then he didn't do research before using it. He said he didn't know if it was good or bad. Where's the logic and sanity in that?
@@Jay-tk7ib if you can't figure out after watching the video, I'm afraid logic and sanity are rather beyond your capabilities.
@@refarmer1574 He said he didn't know if it was good or bad. It sounds like he hasn't figured it out, yet he tells us to do the research. What scientific studies did he provide?
@@Jay-tk7ib it's not his job to do your thinking for you. You want the research? Do some critical thinking - which is the whole point - and find the research yourself.
@@refarmer1574 No, I'm not asking for the research, I'm making the point that he is assuming this to be safe and then telling everyone not to assume it's unsafe. What sense does that make?
I love cardboard! Hubby got an industrial paper/cardboard shredder from his old job. We use it to shred all our brown cardboard, paper and use it in our compost heaps. I do pick off the tape and labels from the boxes as I don't want my chickens to get it when they play in the compost heaps. I've also shredded it, soaked in a tote of water overnight and then just pull clumps of it to put around plants. Last year we picked up over 300 bags of leaves in those large paper bags. Shredded the bags and put in the backyard and covered it all over with wood chips. OMG the worms love it as do the chickens and ducks.
"i've been doing this for years" Same here. As you mentioned, it is possible that I too, am full of toxic chemicals. For sure, I know "I am full of it" My family tells me that weekly. I will continue to use cardboard, until I see hard data that it is not a viable method. For the most part, too many people are too worried about "non-issues." Too many home gardeners are falling prey to the latest fad and the latest unsubstantiated rumor online.
BTW, do you follow Gardening In Canada? She's got some common sense, decent soil science.
As a former research chemist, I am continually irritated by ignorant babbling on the dangers of "chemicals" in the same vague way you criticize here. I applaud your good handling of this subject matter.
We have a poster that said worms wouldn't eat the inked part of the cardboard they put down. You should be as smart as the worms. Cardboard is good, but synthetic chemicals are bad, no matter what you want to believe.
People who garden from a keyboard are so cool. Just imagine them like Apu diving in between the cardboard and the bed.
I think that we put carboard in compost bins all the time which is means that using compost is no different than using carboard in your garden :) .. uin my opinion using cardboard as mulch is a great solution!
Hey Greg...great video. I love using cardboard, lots of cardboard, because it is free and I have lots of it available to me.
I had a good laugh about the worms coming to the surface trying to breathe under the cardboard...what the heck are people thinking?
A neighbour's garden next door to me uses a heavy black plastic mulch every year, his garden performs fairly well but year after year my garden out performs his by about 50% in yields of produce...my wife warns me it isn't a contest but I win! 😂
Cardboard, grass clippings, leaves, etc., all play a huge part in my garden performing so well!
Anyway, have a great day!
Cheers
Mike 🇨🇦
We can't help wanting to have the best garden. Even the most modest person will take crazy pride in a garden.
And how safe is the black plastic?
Oh man…. Between the cardboard, recycled paper, wood chips, grass clippings, etc I’m totally going to die 😂😂😂
Cardboard is about 300:1 C to N so putting grass clippings on top is a great way to have a compost process going that causes the cardboard to be decomposed over a season even in the ‘North’
Exactly!
I love using cardboard also as I can get all I want close to me. Just not the coloured stuff and after it gets wet the tape comes off easily. It's great for weed suppression
Thanks for the sanity
Always
Love it! Sometimes these whippersnappers need to use critical thinking and soil science 101. 😂 I was raised by farmers. In 70s I thought I was soooo smart reading about ORGANIC gardening and was telling my Grandpa all about my first home garden done MY WAY...😂. He asked "now what is this Organic Gardening?" So my educated self tells him. He just keep eating and said "sounds like a bunch of rich people making problems...we just use soap and water or tobacco juice and pick the bugs off. Poor people don't have money for those chemicals you tell me about...". Yeap. I was an educated whippersnapper that got educated by an old farmer still plowing his garden with a horse. I deserved it. 😂
Where was the soil science in the video to prove everything is safe to use? We see the opposite in the video, he says he doesn't know. How scientific is that? I don't think pure cardboard is bad, but it has been shown that there can be bad things put into it. Shouldn't we do the same scientific research before using things, as well?
Cardboard brings worms
Worms feed chickens
Chickens lay eggs
Some turning required
Cardboard everywhere for me!
Common sense. THANK YOU!
BTW, I picked up Lee's book on growing figs. Very informative, well written, and learned a lot from it. Part of the reason I now have a fig tree in the north-west of Ireland. Mind you, that's in a poly, so should be pretty stress-free.
Think I'll pick up his landscaping with fruit this Summer, when things slow down again.
that's great man!
Company I got my new fruit bushes, and fig tree from use paper tape designed to break down. The only plastic I got from them was a free section of panda plastic wrapped around my cider trees. I don't use cardboard on my beds, but I do use it when I put my pallet composters bed for the winter.
If I could get enough mulch/cardboard, I'd gladly use it. I use weed fabric with holes burnt in it because I can't. If worms are hanging out under the cardboard, it's because it's a warm, dark damp spot full of microbes breaking that cardboard down. The worms are just the visible sign of that process. They are sucking up a lot of those microbes, along with other matter.
When I run out of the cardboard we get from having things shipped to us, I go hit up the nearest independent grocery store and talk to the owner about breaking down and setting aside a pick-up truck load of plain brown boxes instead of banding them up to have them hauled off every 3 months or so.
If I had more than 3/4 acre, I'd have a standing deal with them and the little mom and pop burger joint just around the corner to compost their biodegradable waste. Just give some finished compost back when they redo their flower beds and barrels in the spring.
But I can get away with that here in rural Kentucky. I can't for any amount of tip or bonus manage to get chip drop and local arborists to bring me wood chips. This is Kentucky, and they can turn around and sell that, so they do.
But I can find enough cardboard to put a few layers down with a sprinkle of used coffee grounds between them, and then a thin layer of broken up river birch sticks that I collect off the porch and walkway to make it look less like cardboard lol. Sometimes I'll drop the $65 for a cubic yard of wood chips. But not very often.
I cut off the tape. But i don’t worry about the cardboard itself.
Tape i cut off is a great fire starter when needed.
I have a worm bin in my bathroom (don't ask) and feed them all kinds of cardboard. As long as it isn't shiny or covered with a lot of ink, in it goes. Toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, egg cartons, torn up boxes - they love it. Corrugated does seem to be their favourite. Canada, and a few other countries, switched their inks to soy-based a number of years ago so I don't worry too much about ink from N.A. products.
Not sure if you mentioned it or not, but cardboard also holds a fair amount of moisture in it as well.
You got one of those outhouses for your guests? My folks keep their outhouse all ready for visitors to the farm since 1 little indoor toilet gets a work out during a family hootenanny. 😂
@@tanyabriggs8969 😂
Yes I forgot to mention the soy thing. I recall reading about that few years ago. I'm always getting comments on my toxic cardboard - drives me nuts :)
@@maritimegardening4887 Welcome to the Weird Wide Web.
I agree with your approach man but I also agree with asking the question of if cardboard is safe
I saying that cardboard is a organic material my opinion is it’s up to a lot of things
I’d like to add Ive watch this channel for a couple years by now and always a great harvest
Of course. My issue was with the type that is concerned about "chemicals" but does not seem to know that all chemicals are no bad, and doesn't even know what chemicals they are worried about.
Cardboard breaks down great when put down in multiple layers. Especially if you sprinkle some used coffee grounds between each layer. But whatever is exposed to the sun and dries out quickly and frequently will definitely take longer.
The rational gardener, yea!
"sulfuric acid, chlorine, and chlorine dioxide" I wouldn't worry about them.
But, before someone starts dissing a method or material, they should do some research to see if their assumptions/fears are correct.
Shouldn't you do the same before using those things? Why doesn't that make sense?
@@Jay-tk7ib yes. Sulfuric acid is a fungicide and used to lower ph.
Chlorine is used to disinfect, but what little there is in cardboard with disinfect nothing.
@@ecocentrichomestead6783 What about beneficial fungus? Thats a big part of what makes living soil.
@@Jay-tk7ib there's not enough there to make an impact, damn it!
I'm just saying there's no highly toxic chemicals in cardboard. What chemicals there is are naturally in the soil already.
@@ecocentrichomestead6783 I have nothing against cardboard, as long as it's pure cardboard, or contains natural substances.
I used a lot of cardboard last year and plan to use it this year as well, my only concern is that it seems to attract a lot of slugs! Anyway to prevent that?
Do you have problem holding the cardboard down in strong winds? Thanks for the video.
There's a link to a video at the end where I talk about that. Short answer - just put something on it to hold it down - like rocks or logs or whatever. We have crazy winds here - it's not a problem.
Do you have a cover for the parsnips?
what do you mean?
Do you put a plastic row cover over your parsnips?@@maritimegardening4887
You say to investigate what chemicals and how much are in those things before rejecting it as bad, but then you don't do that before ACCEPTING it as good.
I don't accept that it's good - I'm just not worried about it being bad. I explained that there are some types of cardbaord that can be problematic - and that I try to avoid them by using simple rreasoning. Besides - there is a preponderance of agriculture extension articles advocating for the use of most cardboards. If there was a high degree of risk I doubt that would be the case. If you are worried about it don't use cardboard. Do your own research. If you happen to have some really good reasons for why it should not be used, please make a youtube video about it.
@@maritimegardening4887 I'm not worried, but if I were going to use it a lot, I would try to make sure it was good for my soil. It's not the cardboard I would be concerned about.
I ❤ cardboard in my garden
I'm a fan of cardboard!
Critical thinking is a rare occurrence nowadays.
Thank you
If the cardboard is breaking down then the organisms already have nitrogen. They use a small amount of nitrogen to break down the carbon and guess what is a byproduct besides CO2 when the organisms break down the carbons that is readily available to plants? Who said nitrogen? You win a star.
Yes! I've used cardboard for 10 years. My garden loves it because worms love it and they leave their castings after eating it. I think that part of the fear surrounding cardboard is that people underestimate the power to correct within God's design of our earth.
Chemicals are officially compounds. You are speaking of elements. Other than that, 100% cardboard's the best.