A gardening TikTok video shared by Bloomhouse_ (@bloomhouse__) showed viewers a perfect way to get rid of old cardboard without waiting for a recycling truck.
@bloomhouse__ No till garden beds using cardboard #beginnerflowerfarm #cutflowers #flowerfarm #notill #cardboardgarden #gardenbed ♬ Slide – Calvin Harris / Frank Ocean / Migos
If you’re overwhelmed with used boxes left from deliveries or after a big move, it may be a sign to start a garden.
A byproduct of trees, Bloomhouse repurposed cardboard to “kill” grass, which returns it to the soil it originated from instead of wasting it in a landfill. Similar to hügelkultur, a technique using nutrient-rich organic mounds, the old boxes and newer cardboard rolls act as fertilizer while suppressing destructive weeds.
Use something sharp to puncture the cardboard “so the roots will reach the native soil,” Bloomhouse captioned on the video. From there, you can start planting immediately.
Upgrading your yard from all grass to biodiverse native vegetation supports food security for your household and the world at large. That’s because healthy native plants attract friendly creatures from bees to hummingbirds to monarch butterflies, which take over crop sowing by constantly spreading pollen.
Once you complete the hard work, like laying down sheet mulch, compost, and seeds, nature can mostly take over from there.
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In addition, low-maintenance native plants from trees to clover groundcover increase your landscape’s ecological and economic advantage through less irrigation needs. Today’s Homeowner states it can cost $50 to $200 monthly to water a lawn during summer. However, according to Calscape, native plants use 60-80% less water than traditional monoculture lawns.
Further reduce water usage by considering your environment. Use drought-resistant plants and xeriscaping in hot zones or dig out a groundwater filtering rain garden in wet areas.
Commercially grown produce may be convenient to buy, but it harbors pesticide ingestion risk. Unfortunately, according to Healthy Yards, as much as 95% of pesticides miss their target organisms, while killing off beneficial pollinators and contaminating local water and soil.
Sustainable gardening methods can prevent such exposure, as you control your food source from start to finish. Thus, you can protect your household from ingesting harmful chemicals, which studies from Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society link to increased cancer risk.
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With that said, you should practice sustainable methods to optimum effect. As Bloomhouse later commented, unless you have clean recycled cardboard — no ink/labels, “I wouldn’t recommend [this method] if you are growing food!”
Other commenters on the post were excited to try Bloomhouse’s method.
One TikToker wrote, “This inspired me to recycle my paper bags as liners for my garden beds. I’m excited to see how it works out.”
One commenter shared, “We had AMAZING results with ours last year doing this.”
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