I’m going to turn about 1000 sq of grass into hardwood mulch for future berries. Getting rid of the grass is the tricky part. The area is large enough that I don’t want to screw around with individual cardboard boxes under the mulch to kill the grass. Not gonna use Roundup either to start this project.
I do that regularly. I’ll take a photo tomorrow because I am in the middle of such a project right now. I get boxes from the local dollar general (that may be the only thing they are good for) just overlap the boxes and then cover with a few inches of leaf mold or wood chips. Works great. Throw down some wine cap mushroom spawn while you are at it and you will be choking on mushrooms. When in doubt, overlap more cardboard. It is so much harder to get rid of grass that makes it through the cracks than it is to just put down more cardboard.
I second asking a local store for free materials. You don’t have to pay for it and get to up-cycle waste. However, I fully support and agree with the concept of cardboard >compost >woodchips /hay/straw as I’ve done it myself and it made very rich soil.
Are you just not wanting to use RoundUp or any chemical? If its just the RoundUp you dont want to use you can go with a Clethodim produce which will target only grass species.
We thought about trying cardboard but for us its not practical as it would take way too much of it.
I personally have nothing against roundup, nor chemicals in general. I use roundup occasionally to kill weeds that would be a pain to dig up. Its more about trying to keep peace with the neighbor. He is convinced that roundup will cause cancer to anybody within a quarter mile radius. I’m trying to keep things amicable since I’ll be near our shared property line.
Honestly, I would spray it with Roundup and tell your neighbor it was vinegar or something like that. Second choice would be just to till the area up with a rototiller a couple of times a week apart, that takes care of most fescue here and you can incorporate some compost the second pass. The cardboard route does nothing to improve the soil and can actually kill the earthworms underneath by limiting the gas exchange. If you’re dead set on killing the grass with a cover, I’d buy some black plastic on a roll and it will kill out anything underneath in 3 weeks (assuming full sunlight and temps 70 plus), then you can remove it and plant immediately.
I recycle paper products regularly I put cardboard /paper/magzine around the tree trunk to prevent grass grow and provide food for earth worms . I often see many earth worms gathering under the cardboard/paper and have never seen any earth worms are dead due to lack of gas exchange.
Your experience is indicative of my point. The earthworms travel up to the top of the soil, then get trapped under the cardboard that they cannot get through. I would also think about how many dead earthworms you have ever seen under any conditions.
You might try clear plastic sheeting- it will let light through but no water, and the grass grows well, then overheats and dies. This is pretty fast, within a month in summer. Then you do the cardboard and mulch.
I found free damaged pool covers, and am using those to smother grass and weeds, then putting cardboard and mulch down. Some areas I have landscape fabric, like for greenhouse use, but I’m using the pool cover to start. Gives me a chance to work on one area at a time, not going spring crazy. I have a lot of area that had been a garden, now going to be raised beds and trees.
This is about 1800 sq ft of cardboard over sod. I am just finishing an addition and fence around it today. Some of it is about 3 years old and some of it was put in last weekend. The fresh cardboard went in a few minutes ago. I will cover with leaf matter then woodchips or planting beds. The garden is a bit messy right now due to construction.
None. How many dead earth worm because of gas exchange you have seen?
Earth worms travel to top under the cardboard for several reasons. First, the food source. Second, moisture environment that they prefer. Since earth worms can travel, I don’t think they will choose to stay in a place that can kill them.
Yes, I believe cardboard is ideal worm habitat.
Gives them access to the soil surface while being safe from some predators.( birds ) They seem to love the cardboard
I’m trying to do sheet mulch for the first time this year and so far it is working out well. I’m doing it in my Haskap bed and my Gooseberry bed. We will see how long they are able to suppress the weeds this year. my only concern are invasive grasses creeping over the edge, but a string trimmer should keep that at bay. my haskap bed is a foundation planting and one thing I noticed before planting is the cardboard also acts like a wick, pulling water that lands further away from the foundation closer towards the wall where it would otherwise remain dry under the eaves.
I think that corrugated should work beautifully for the job, although if you have the time and resources, collecting free cardboard should work just as well too. I would go with one layer of A flute, but that’s just me. newspaper in 5 sheet thickness or a single layer of 60# Kraft paper should work as well, although I expect corrugated cardboard to be much stronger at repelling weeds and the airspace may help retain moisture underneath (just an educated guess).
good luck and keep us posted on your test. would love to see some pictures!
I sheet mulch with cardboard a lot. It works great except for invasive grasses. Not sure why but they seem to love growing roots through the layers of cardboard. Much much better than pulling all of the organic matter off the soil and applying mulch IMHO.
Something like a silage tarp could last several years depending on how many mils thick it is but silage tarps repel water and are not made to be left on and grown through. they can be useful in commercial applications but how many people are going to be using a silage tarp more than once to cover a 1,000 sq foot area? Also once you pull it up you are left with exposed dirt that is primed for weeds.
If you mean landscape fabric these can be moisture permeable but they need to be covered by stone or mulch anyway and since they don’t decompose they don’t add anything to the soil like sheet mulching will. I always just found landscape fabric to be a pain as I’m weeding as roots will grow through it and make it harder to remove them because the landscape fabric anchors them to the bed. just my 2 cents.
