US HOMEOWNERS are re-purposing their old Amazon boxes and using them to help their “no dig” yards flourish.
The discarded packaging can help reduce weeds among serving many other purposes for a garden.
The benefits of putting cardboard in your flower beds
Due to being full of carbon and not contaminated by many other chemicals, Amazon boxes can help your plants flourish.
They create a great starter for new beds, help eliminate pesky weeds, and can even help to protect weak or young plants from the elements.
The carbon in the boxes combines with nitrogen in the dirt to create healthy, nutrient soil.
Guidance advises that you ensure any tape or stickers are removed before laying the cardboard in your beds.
Once you have removed all plastic from the packaging, you can begin to lay the cardboard on your beds.
“No dig” gardening
The no dig process involves layering up your soil by using natural material, instead of digging down.
It promotes a healthier bio-diversity in your soil and encouraged insects into your compost.
Reddit users have described this method as “cheap and eco-friendly.”
Describing the benefits of cardboard, one wrote: “It is naturally high in carbon, which in fact aids in decomposition of other organic matter by means of worm activity.
“Worms slowly drag and eat the cardboard as it decomposes.”
Users also praised the technique for weed prevention.
One wrote: “I have used cardboard in my personal garden in front of my house for multiple years and the only places I get weeds are easy to clean up.”
Other ways to recycle old boxes
Amazon boxes have several other uses in your garden.
They can make great containers to store seedings ahead of being planted.
You can simply cut down the edges of the boxes and use them to store up to 15 young plants.
Flattened boxes can also be repurposed to save your clothes from the dirty soil below and be used as garden kneelers.
If you have no other purpose for your cardboard, take advantage of its high levels of carbon and use it for compost.
Clean corrugated cardboard, typically the material of Amazon boxes, is ideal for composting.
If gardening in less your speed, discarded boxes can provide endless fun for your little ones.
Try using them to build forts and costumes, or simply add them to your art supply to save for a rainy day.
October gardening jobs
The Sun’s Gardening Editor, Veronica Lorraine, has shared the jobs you need to tackle in October.
“It’s a good time to trim deciduous hedges – like box, yew, hawthorn, hornbean and beech – plus hedge trimmers are a great upper body workout!
Make leafmould – gather up all the fallen leaves and fill either bin bags or plastic carrier bags. Seal the top, stick a few small holes in the bag – and then store for a year or more. Free compost!
It’s unlikely you’ll get any more red tomatoes so have one final harvest and chuck the plants on the compost. See if you can get the green ones to ripen by putting in a drawer (some say with a banana). Also keep the seeds from a couple – and plant again next year if they went well.
Finish getting in your spring bulbs. Ideally you’d have done daffs and alliums, but tulips are better in the ground when the soil temperature gets a bit colder.
It’s good to leave some plant litter in the ground – it adds to the nutrients as it rots down, and provides shelter and food for insects. But remove the manky brown bits collapsing all over the lawn/winter structure.
Mulch – it not only suppresses weeds, but keeps the soil warm, improves water retention and adds a little winter duvet to your outside space.
October’s a good month for carrots, peas, asparagus, broad beans, and rhubarb.”
Old boxes can also be used as garden kneelers and containers for seedings[/caption]
