I put cardboard on weeds 6 months ago in my yard and this happened! I used cardboard as a life hack to organically control weeds in my yard and garden with surprising results. Using free cardboard from Amazon boxes, I made DIY weed barrier to reduce weeds in my garden. This video shares the complete before and after effect!
Please see the following links for items shown in the video:
Weed Barrier link*: https://amzn.to/3ZVToFc
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Using Cardboard As Natural Weed Control
1:12 How To Stop Weeds With Weed Fabric
2:39 Using Cardboard To Stop Garden Weeds
5:19 Results 6 Months Later!
8:48 Lessons Learned
10:07 Reusing Cardboard Twice
11:41 Adventures With Dale
If you have any questions about how to use cardboard as a landscape fabric for garden weed control, have questions about growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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Safer Brand Caterpillar Killer (BT Concentrate) https://amzn.to/2SMXL8D
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Organza Bags (Fig-size) https://amzn.to/3AyaMUz
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46 Comments
If you found this video helpful, please "Like" and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 Using Cardboard As Natural Weed Control
1:12 How To Stop Weeds With Weed Fabric
2:39 Using Cardboard To Stop Garden Weeds
5:19 Results 6 Months Later!
8:48 Lessons Learned
10:07 Reusing Cardboard Twice
11:41 Adventures With Dale
Thanks for your update on weed barrier! I'll be using cardboard in my garden spaces to prevent weeds!!😁🇱🇷🤗
Very informative video!
I did notice 2 things that seemed polar opposites tho.
I see the point of weed barriers is to keep new things from growing, yet composting is to help new growth. It seems to me that using cardboard in the point of this video was to help prevent new growth. That seems the opposite of cardboard breaking down to help with new growth.
I think the cardboard did exactly what you wanted in this case by preventing new growth.
When it starts falling apart is when it it ready for the compost bin.
Thank you for recording this experiment with the cardboard.
My hypothesis is that if the cardboard had soil or mulch over it rather of having landscape fabric over it, it would have broken down much more significantly over 6 months. Would be another good experiment!
Centipede grass…I’ve been dealing with it for years. I put a 12×12 tarp down 5 years ago and it still has roots under it. I am letting the chickens deal with it in the fenced garden this year and I’m growing in a few raised beds outside. I also will be edging all other areas around the garden. Because this stuff just keeps crawling back after you pull it out. I refuse to use chemicals. Good luck to all that has the grass, I’m in north central Tennessee.
In the condition of your leftover cardboard I use in my compost bins. At that point its easier to seperate the 2 layers and rip to add to compost. I use it as weed barrier and as my 3 bin compost wall liners. Mother nature helps to break it down a bit, then I get benefits and reuse 😊
You have to soak the cardboard if you want it to decompose at all. That cardboard looks completely dry. At least your weeds are gone!
my husband shreds the cardboard along with the clean junk mail and use it in the compost as the carbon
Ty for sharing. I need that woven ground cover for around my raised beds I used multiple layers of cardboard & printed soda box cardboard under a floating deck walkway, from the house to a pole barn. It has been there for 7 years before I started seeing an occasional weed creep thru the deck.
I'm glad I subscribed to your channel I learn a lot from you about to do when growing a garden
You should have put"free weed"in the title. Would gets millions of views
I put kitchen scraps under cardboard. Worms love it!
Using cardboard here in Southern CA to sop up the soggy garden. After years of drought, we have rain, and a bit too much!
I used cardboard to landscape a new area in my lawn for new bushes, small tree etc. I covered the grass as you did then had the bushes and tree planted in a cutout area of the cardboard last summer. Soaked the cardboard to soften it and then I covered everything with a heavy layer of mulch. I kept watering the area for the plants and it's now March. It worked. I will put on a fresh layer of mulch this May, but it saved a lot of backbreaking work removing a 15 x 25 area of grass and weeds.
I bought myself a Bonsai shredder rated for cardboard and began shredding my cardboard. I use it for everything.
I have cardboard in my garden area, completely uncovered on the ground, and it also has not decomposed either. In a different area, I found that it’s 2-3 years as a weed barrier.
Chemicals and solvents used to create paper products are toxic and I would think that there would be a certain amount of these chemicals found in the finished product. I am skeptical about the safety of using paper products for ground cover or compost material. I think that I will look into this further before using cardboard in a garden area. I live in Louisiana and the entire state has been poisoned by oil and chemical companies. I don't want to add to the woes.
Why not give the cardboard a good soaking with the hose before covering it?
It should have been watered down before you added the landscape barrier.
I also use the glossy cardboard. I toss it in my firepit and then use the leftovers in my compost bins
"You're not helping"🤣
My cardboard didn’t break down after 2 years, with mulch on top and snow covering it 4 months of the year. The shredded stuff in compost breaks down by end of summer.
"Use this one trick that weed barrier manufactures don't want you to know!" 😅
I think your theory as to why the cardboard hasn't broken down is spot on. Great analogy.
The grass you're trying to kill out looks a lot like the stuff I have in the yard.
Great video, where did you purchase the pink pearl apple from?
Very informative. Thanks so much.
I used it in my watermelon garden, than put shredded leaves over top to hold it down, it’s all over a year to decompose. You just Gotta make sure to take off the tape that’s on the boxes and throw that away, but no grasses or weeds are growing there as of yet.
Free weed is all I saw but now I know a new skill
Ive used cardboard also. Have you ever looked into blow torches… lots of videos and I’m thinking about trying it.
Cardboard, compost on top. This is how no-dig gardeners/farmers often get a plot ready. If you have especially stubborn weed grasses then you could throw the barrier on top of the cardboard/compost. The compost on top of the cardboard is really what gets the earthworms and other life starting to do their thing and pulling stuff down into the ground, improving the natural biome underneath where you want it. Yes, they will also consume the cardboard by itself but give them more food with the compost and you get better results for the soil. This matters if you want to plant there.
Because you just had cadrboard and a cover on top the soil underneath would have dried out, so it's not going to do what you thought it would do.
So, preparation, like what people talk about and your experiment does nothing to suggest they are wrong, is they lay down cardboard, THEN put compost on top, THEN add water, because your soil can't dry out if you want worms to get in there, right? Funny thing about water and life, they tend to go together and that soil was bone dry.
Agreed!!
I use cardboard for walkways and to kill a new section with grass or weeds. It does last about a year for me. When I compost them it goes quicker, probably just more nitrogen in it to break it down.
Man! I recycle tons of cardboard ever week. I tried blocking weeds/grass with it with no success. I did not, however, overlap it nor did I put the weed barrier down over it so they continued to push their way in between. I need to try this again. Thanks.
I have a small 48×12 in ground vegetable garden. For years most of my work was weeding. Last summer I used cardboard to lay down walkways in between rows of veggies. This cut down my weeding by 2/3. The weeding was a whole lot less. And the cardboard does thin out and will need to be replaced. I’ll toss the old into my compost box when we till this year. So, it does compost. Just longer than 6 months.
I utilize package card board boxes, but I much rather use the cardboard sheets/slips that you can get at Costco or Smart & Final…much larger, no ink, no tape and no holes!
Also, moisture is the key to breakdown. I lay a think layer of wood chips on top of the cardboard. 5 months into the rainy season in Los Angeles and the cardboard is almost gone and the worms are happy.
I have to disagree with your conclusions that the cardboard will last for years.I think yours lasted so long because it wasn't wet. I put cardboard down in a portion of my Ohio yard last summer where I put large tubs for tomatoes, interspersed with smaller containers of lettuce. It did work well to suppress grass and weeds for awhile – but I would have been better served to put more down as the season progressed because what I laid down originally was totally decomposed by fall. The summer rains and the water dripping from the bottom of my containers wet it down regularly and helped it disappear. If I opt for cardboard this year, I'll be sure to add more when needed – heaven knows, Amazon gives me a ready supply!
Could part of this effect be attributed to the fact that the weed barrier inhibits the flow of water from the surface, through the weed barrier, and into the soil? There are studies from a “garden professor” (Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott) showing that landscape fabric / weed barriers substantially inhibit the flow of water and air to the soil (and presumably also cardboard, in this case). Perhaps a relative lack of water and air could account for some of this result.
I've had cardboard buried in wood chips to kill a large area of weeds for about 5 months now. It HAS broken down more than yours but I can still go find it. It'll probably be completely broken down in another 5 months though.
I use it in my flower beds and my vegetable garden (the "catwalks"), after I put a layer of +- 10cm sawdust.
No weed is coming through the cardboard and no weed is growing on top of the sawdust.
Nice one! I use cardboard as a tarp over my unused bed during the winter. No weeds come spring planting time.😃 It also keeps the soil critter happy.🐞
Hey Dale!🐕
Our community has giant community recycling bins and when I need cardboard I come by and pick up boxes or big pieces (like giant TV boxes, etc).
Compost on top of cardboard as mulch would made it decomposed in no time like Charles Dowding does. I can verify it works, planted cherry tree in October and I cannot find any cardboard below the compost mulch. Even in my compost bin it breaks down quickly with no heat.
I use my old boxes in my walkways under mulch and only have the surface weeks that germinate in the soil blown into the mulch. Love the info shared on this channel.
First on some of the robot vacuums it seems they take private video's of your house and family and can be hacked so you might check out the reports on that. Cardboard does make a great weed barrier and it will kill the above ground grass part but not the seeds. I was told cardboard and black plastic will kill all the seeds in the ground after a short time but they won't. We put down black plastic, black landscape fabric, black tarp and regular cardboard in different areas to see how it killed seeds in the soil we were going to leave it down for a year but things happen. The cardboard it lasted about a year and worked great as a weed barrier until it started breaking down then it was back to basically natural state with weeds which is expected. Now the black plastic, tarp and landscape Material it was down for 5 years I was hoping to kill out all the seeds in the area under the material because that was what I was told. They said lack of light and heat would kill all seeds in the area. Well they were wrong. I removed all the material and within one month it was completely covered in grass and weeds just like it was before so it doesn't kill anything it just goes into a Dormant state. One thing to think about when using any ground cover including cardboard is snakes like to hide under the cover even landscape cloth so always be looking.
Yes some negative people give bad info for example do Not put any crushed drywall for calcium or nutrients it will ruin your garden soil and cause blight problems ☠️😖✌️
I used cardboard to create a no-till flower bed. I laid down the cardboard just before a freezing rain, which welded it into a single sheet. I then placed chopped leaves on top and covered all of it with black plastic with some holes poked in it. I placed a light layer of mulch on top for aesthetic reasons. the following spring I transplanted by cutting into the plastic. Worked great! I think the soaking/freezing hastened the breakdown. By the way, I live in middle Tennessee