Cardboard Weed Suppressant: it works

**Two_Sheds** · 16-03-2010, 05:44 PM

Mr TS asked me yesterday why everyone else's plots are all raked and neat, while mine is covered in dead plants and cardboard.

I tried to explain that I leave my sweetcorn in the ground all winter because:

- it provides shelter for hibernating ladybirds
- it makes good ground cover, suppressing weeds and preventing soil erosion
- it's easier to dig up and compost in the spring when it's like straw, than in the autumn when it's really tough & green

He still thought I ought to join the bare soil brigade

(Right picture: The bits of ground that I left bare over winter are now smothered with bladdy chickweed and speedwell)

Attached Files

**rustylady** · 16-03-2010, 05:55 PM

Bare ground soon gets colonised (usually with weeds) Much better to cover it and keep it moist ready for planting or sowing what you want to grow.

**Lazgaot** · 16-03-2010, 06:23 PM

Originally posted by rustylady View Post

Bare ground soon gets colonised (usually with weeds) Much better to cover it and keep it moist ready for planting or sowing what you want to grow.

This is only true if you don't regularly weed and hoe the weeds out. I've got some totally bare beds that are also totally weed free. The trick is not dig them for a start and then any weeds that do germinate are quickly removed,usually within a week. I've done this for a year and the weeding work load is minimal now.

The concept is a Stale Seedbed. From another site,
"Stale or false seedbed: is a seedbed prepared several days, weeks or even months before planting or transplanting a crop. The technique is recognised as a strategy suitable for organic farming and has been widely used for many years. The stale seedbed is based on the principle of flushing out weed seeds ready to germinate prior to the planting of the crop, depleting the seedbank in the surface layer of soil and reducing subsequent weed seedling emergence. The soil is cultivated about four weeks before drilling to stimulate germination and encourage the first, and usually biggest, flush of weeds".

**stupot** · 16-03-2010, 06:48 PM

Furniture boxes and flatscreen boxes are the best. If someone I know mentions they're getting new tv or furniture I soon start sniffing around for the packaging

Other top scrounges include old water cooler bottles from a man round the corner and as much coffee grinds that I can carry home from the office coffee shop.

Having an allotment has turned me into a right tinker!

**greengas** · 17-03-2010, 03:50 AM

Originally posted by stupot View Post

Furniture boxes and flatscreen boxes are the best. If someone I know mentions they're getting new tv or furniture I soon start sniffing around for the packaging

Other top scrounges include old water cooler bottles from a man round the corner and as much coffee grinds that I can carry home from the office coffee shop.

Having an allotment has turned me into a right tinker!

Could not agree more stupot, they call me the magpie in work as I am always taking stuff home. I work in a very large hospital so always at the carboard compactor or shoving pallets in my boot before the rubbish man takes it away. Crap wages in the NHS but it has its upside when it comes to scavageing old rubbish

**Two_Sheds** · 17-03-2010, 07:49 AM

Originally posted by Lazgaot View Post

This is only true if you don't regularly weed and hoe the weeds out.

That's fine if the bed is already clear of pernicious perennial weeds. You can't hoe out couch grass

**Rhona** · 17-03-2010, 10:00 AM

Yep - we're using huge flat cardboard boxes from the flooring shop nearby. Our plot is huge with bits still overgrown (but only with 'friendly' weeds, nothing pernicious). We can only clear so much this season for practical growing purposes, and the cardboard works a treat controlling the areas we can't get to this season.

**Rhona** · 17-03-2010, 10:46 AM

TS, did you cut the weeds down to ground level first, or just weigh down the cardboard to do the work?

**marathon** · 17-03-2010, 11:35 AM

Originally posted by Two_Sheds View Post

In the autumn I put some wet cardboard and newspapers along the weedy fence on our site (weighted down with bags full of leaves).

The weeds were bramble, dock, thistle, bindweed, but mostly couch grass.

5 months later, the weeds have died and the soil underneath is black, moist, crumbly and full of worms. I planted this patch up with self-sown cornflower, nemophila and wallflowers, a hebe & some grasses from my garden.

The cardboard has gone in the Daleks to continue rotting down.

I put some down just before christmas on a small area that I still have a problem with couch grass and you so right it really does work. I actually covered with a layer of manure on top covered with black plastic.

I dug a litle corner of it with a trowl to see what was going on and nothing seems to have come through the cardboard from the bottom but the manure seems to be breaking it down from the top. I'm going to leave it covered for a few more months then plant some squashes in it.

**Alison** · 17-03-2010, 12:39 PM

I covered some last April and then cut holes in it to plant potatoes through. Got a good crop and the soil was great when I dug up the spuds. Bonus in two ways.

**Two_Sheds** · 17-03-2010, 04:00 PM

Originally posted by Rhona View Post

TS, did you cut the weeds down to ground level first, or just weigh down the cardboard to do the work?

Yes I cut to ground level first (and chucked the bramble back over the fence where it came from)

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