Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by sam_ford, Jul 23, 2009.

  1. sam_ford

    sam_ford Junior Member

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    I often visit the US Blog 'One Straw' for good ideas. Recently the writer has talked about using cardboard pallet sheets as a base layer for sheet mulching: https://onestraw.wordpress.com/sub-acre-ag/sheet-mulch/
    He can access them free, they are print free plain cardboard which cover a good size area - much easier & cleaner than newspaper.

    I presume the pallet sheets would be used in Australia at places like Bunnings. Has anyone thought of using these and had success in both finding them and getting given some used sheets?

    James

    random plantings
    permaculture, chooks & stuff in the Samford Valley (Queensland)
    https://www.randomplantings.com/
     
  2. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    g'day james,

    have you gone to the bunny shop and asked? it would be same/similar cardboard to what gets used to pack fridges etc.,.

    there is a bit of a myth that cardboard is better than newspaper at holding back weeds and grasse, but we have found that not to be quite right in all cases, nothing beats 20 to 40 pages of newspaper.

    not sure what is meant by cleaner than newspaper? there are glues in cardboard and the inks on newspaper are soy or mineral based hardly any chemicals used these days, and if you had a page of paper covered in colour i have been told in weight the ink would be less than or around 2% the weight of the paper. also find it lots easier to build up and store a stash of newspaper.

    plus it can be a whole lot easier to collect a car load of paper than a car load of cardboard.

    so check out your local appliance store as well for cardboard.

    len
     
  3. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    My local cardboard recycler lets you go down to the sheds and pick out the big bits of cardboard. I like large cardboard because once you have it its less work.
     
  4. sam_ford

    sam_ford Junior Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    Len - I was assuming that newspaper print was a bit of a negative but from your comments it doesn't sound like its a big deal. In the end I've done the same as pebble and gone down to check out the cardboard recycling skip at our local dump. I was in luck this weekend as someone had just left quite a few unused removalists tea-chests which should be perfect for the area that I have in mind.
    James
     
  5. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    g'day sam_ford,

    nope no issue at all even that coloured glossy stuff you get as enclosures or in the mail box recycle them all through the garden. the worms show a prefference for the coloured stuff.

    len
     
  6. hozzy

    hozzy Junior Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    I just did some sheet mulching with cardboard about a week ago. So far it has worked great, the plants are all doing great and there are no weeds coming up. I have head that cardboard works better then newspaper because weeds can pop up through the newspaper without much trouble.

    I have heard other accounts that the cardboard method works wonders.
     
  7. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    I've been using gyprock sheet to mulch, seems good so far. any one done it or know of problems?(its for a paved area)
     
  8. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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  9. gbell

    gbell Junior Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    I actually did some research into the safety/smartness of composting cardboard. I rang Amcor, just because their name was on some nice, plain looking cardboard I got from Woolies. A helpful, scientifically minded fellow there told me that they add starch, viscosity chemicals (he wasn't sure: borax?), caustic soda, and a PVA/PVB adhesive. Their cardboard is formaldehyde free, but other manufacturers are not. Amcor hadn't done research into composting it.

    Possibly the formaldehyde gets broken down by organisms present in a healthy soil, as Dr. Elaine Ingham thinks happens with some more evil compounds which shall remain nameless to prevent this thread from deteriorating. And since formaldehyde is only CH2O (ie. no heavy metals) it might be benign eventually, but I am not a chemist.

    Likewise, I'm not sure of the wisdom of composting borax (boric acid), caustic soda, and PVA/PVB glues.

    But, just like spinach has the same bad thing in it that rhubarb leaves do (oxalic acid), the best advice with composting cardboard might be just "don't eat too much of it". That is, don't use too much of it on your soil. When the value of a free, ubiquitous source of carbon is weighed against a few low-probability and low-concentration risks, its probably worth it.

    If others reading this would bug the cardboard manufacturers, maybe they'll put more effort into keeping their product unpolluted so that we can be confident about our idea of disposing of it usefully.

    Greg
     
  10. milifestyle

    milifestyle New Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    Some more research into formaldahyde might be a good place to start. Its one of the more toxic chemicals in many particle boards, MDF, cardboards etc.
     
  11. sam_ford

    sam_ford Junior Member

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    Re: Cardboard pallet sheets as sheet mulching

    Good on you Greg for contacting Amcor. I must admit I've always naively thought of cardboard as being as a quite benign material.
    I've done some additional googling of the subject and the use of cardboard as mulch can be contentious. From what I've read, organic gardening groups are generally OK with its use, however I did read of corrugated cardboard being banned from one community garden in the US.
    There is quite a good relevant discussion at the following site:
    https://perrone.blogs.com/horticultural/ ... y-had.html
     

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