Protecting parsley with a cardboard box extends the harvesting season With the open flaps securely weighted, the box cloches block cold winds and extend the picking season by several weeks. In addition to using cardboard mulch to protect beds from compaction or subjugate weeds or grasses, this time of year I use box cloches around parsley and other marginally hardy plants. Termites are occasionally seen in cardboard mulch that is kept too dry, so avoid using cardboard mulch in parched places close to your house.
![does cardboard decompose does cardboard decompose](https://getcaddle.com/media/2019/10/plasticbottle.png)
Cardboard mulch needs to stay moist, so plan to cover it with compost or another material if you live in a dry climate. Even the gardener’s helper enjoys a cardboard box!Ī bit of advice: Shipping tape comes off easily when cardboard is wet, so I place boxes I plan to use in the garden outside and let them get rained on before I clean and flatten them. Many gardeners build raised beds right on their lawns, and line the bottoms with cardboard to smother the grass – a technique that makes it possible to fill the beds and start gardening right away. Using cardboard to create new gardening space is high on the list of recommended methods promoted by Wild Ones, a non-profit advocacy organization for native plants, because smothering surface vegetation with cardboard causes less trauma to a site compared to digging it up. After a few months under cardboard, the wild things were weakened to the point where I could dig them out. Working a section at a time, I cut back the invaders and covered the surface with several sheets of damp cardboard, with soil and pulled weeds between the layers to help maintain moisture. When I moved to my current garden ten years ago, a third of it had gone wild and grown into a tangle of nettles and blackberries, with a groundcover of poison ivy running through the whole mess. It therefore would have the lowest number and smallest quantity of chemical substances, compared to white, glossy, highly printed, waxed or otherwise coated cardboard, paperboard, and papers.” Weigh down cardboard with rocks to prevent it blowing away Smothering Weeds with Cardboard Mulchīesides, there are many ways to use cardboard in the vegetable garden that simply work. Brown corrugated cardboard appears to be the least processed paper product. According to the National Center for Appropriate Technology, “the basic components of corrugated cardboard seem to be relatively benign. Gardeners have different opinions on using cardboard in the vegetable garden, but certified organic growers can use what I call ‘clean’ cardboard – plain, unwaxed boxes with all tape and sticky labels removed, with minimal printing on the outside.
![does cardboard decompose does cardboard decompose](https://againstthelight.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Plastic-Graph.jpg)
In spring, I can lift the cardboard, give the bed a light raking, and put it to work. The best way to do this is to cover the bed with cardboard, held in place with stones, bricks, or pieces of firewood. I put a ridiculous amount of effort into preparing that carrot bed, so now I need to cut my losses and preserve the bed’s ready-to-plant condition until spring. My most recent disaster occurred when a deer found my fall carrots and plucked them out one by one while I slept. Like most gardeners, I have my share of successes and failures.