Weed control-----cardboard

[Stwood]

Mulling this over. Using cardboard as a weed control between rows of plants.
Has anyone done this, and what kind of mess do you end up with come fall??

Thanks


Steve

[Morning Sunshine]

are you pulling it up in the fall?  I let it stay and rot where it is.  put more over the top next year.

[Stwood]

Pulling it up. I guess that would depend. If it started coming apart and blowing around. Or, if I decided to till debree under.
I plow every 3-4 years. Till in between those years. I also like to offset my rows when planting. 

[Skunkeye]

It works a lot better if you put something on top of the cardboard.  Some kind of mulch, like wood chips or leaves.  That helps keep the cardboard damp and flexible, and the weight helps hold it down in contact with the soil, and it's less likely to get blown around by wind.  If you just put cardboard down, the gaps underneath it provide places for all kinds of creatures to shelter, and some of those creatures (like mice or slugs), you don't really want in your garden.

[Redman]

are you pulling it up in the fall?  I let it stay and rot where it is.  put more over the top next year.

If you can get newsprint, old paper grocery bags, it would break down quicker. It would still need something on top of it.

[Stwood]

Ck on weighting it down. I figured using chips or just dirt maybe.
I'll need to find a source for massive amounts of cardboard or paper.
I can see where paper would break down quicker. I'll ck with the newspaper office.

I currently have a small amount of shag (ugh) carpet in 2 rows, on it's third year, and this year will be it's last looks like. But I don't have near enough, and it's a pain to deal with. Have to store it somewhere outside, which kills the grass.

[Skunkeye]

Have you considered compost trenches?  We switched our garden to this method a couple years back, and it's working out really well.

The idea is to dig out the soil between the rows and fill the trenches you create with leaves and other compostable material.  We piled the soil onto the planting rows to make them sort of raised mounds, then filled the pathways up to level with the mounds, making the whole garden raised a few inches (until it all settled back down to close to the original elevation).  As the material in the paths breaks down, it provides a great moisture reservoir for the plants.  They can send their roots into the trenches to get nutrients and water.  Since the pathways are several inches deep of leaves and fine wood chips, there's not much weed growth there, and weeds that do sprout are very easy to pull (and then throw back on top of the trench to compost away).  Every year we rake back the top layer of leaves and dig the fully-composted material out of the bottom of the trenches and dress the planting rows with it, then add more leaves to refill the trenches.  It's been a very good system for us in hot central Texas, because of its great water retention and weed suppression features.

[Stwood]

Sounds like a good idea you have there.
I may try a small area, maybe a couple of rows??
We have a big garden. 65x95. That would be a huge undertaking for use if we did the whole garden that way. But, if a couple of rows would work out, I guess we could do a little at a time each year maybe.

[Pearl S]

Paper feed bags are good if you don't want cardboard. Ask anyone who buys feed in bags for chickens or goats, they probably have a bunch. No corrugations for the slugs to set up housekeeping in.

I do cardboard, I get huge boxes from the furniture store trash, be sure to clean up well after yourself (and them!) and no one will complain. It always looks better when I leave than when I got there. Weighting it down is required, it blows away fast as soon as it dries out. When I have cardboard down and no mulch on it yet, I drop T posts or bricks on it.

Fun story: I had a cop stop one day, he said "This is not a police question, just for my own curiosity. I see you get the cardboard out of the dumpsters, I see you strip off the tape and stuff, then you put it on the ground, WHY?! What are you doing?" I got to teach him about sheet mulching! That was in the desert, where the ground reflects a lot of heat, I had him walk where I had mulched, he said "It's 10 degrees cooler here!" Yup. That it is.

[Stwood]

Paper bags. Good idea! Thanks. We used to get feed in paper bags, but no longer (er, haven't this year) get feed from that direction now.
All of our current bags are now plastic. Yuk. But they do work for storing and transporting walnuts.

I'll have to dig down in our pile of saved bags and see if there's any paper ones left.

I've got some more old carpet yet. Just got through cutting to width some and laying it down between rows.
I'm declaring war on weeding this year......

[Redman]

Paper feed bags are good if you don't want cardboard. Ask anyone who buys feed in bags for chickens or goats, they probably have a bunch. No corrugations for the slugs to set up housekeeping in.

I do cardboard, I get huge boxes from the furniture store trash, be sure to clean up well after yourself (and them!) and no one will complain. It always looks better when I leave than when I got there. Weighting it down is required, it blows away fast as soon as it dries out. When I have cardboard down and no mulch on it yet, I drop T posts or bricks on it.

Fun story: I had a cop stop one day, he said "This is not a police question, just for my own curiosity. I see you get the cardboard out of the dumpsters, I see you strip off the tape and stuff, then you put it on the ground, WHY?! What are you doing?" I got to teach him about sheet mulching! That was in the desert, where the ground reflects a lot of heat, I had him walk where I had mulched, he said "It's 10 degrees cooler here!" Yup. That it is.

Yes, if you go dumpster diving clean up after yourself.

Cool story on the cop.

[Finster]

if you are looking for a good supply of cardboard I have found bike shops are a good source as the always have large boxes on hand which have very little parcel tape on them so you get a large area covered with little effort
Cheers Finster

[Stwood]

if you are looking for a good supply of cardboard I have found bike shops are a good source as the always have large boxes on hand which have very little parcel tape on them so you get a large area covered with little effort
Cheers Finster

Awesome! Thanks

[Stwood]

Thanks to Pearl S's suggestion of paper feed bags, I found a stash of used ones in the barn.
I think I'll rip one side doubling the size, and lay those down. Apply some chips to hold-er-down....


Thanks

[Redman]

Sounds like a plan. Just wondering, do feed bags have multiple layer of paper and is at least one layer waxed or otherwise treated to slow/prevent moister infiltraton?

[Stwood]

Most that I've seen have at least 2 layers. Some have wax, some don't.
The ones I found, bought last year, are 2 layers, no wax.
I saved them for storing walnuts till sold. A couple weeks in, the bottom of the bags let go from the walnut moisture.