Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Frugal Living => Topic started by: N.WalesIdealist on November 13, 2010, 10:10
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In my work place I deal with loads of bubbles, stiff packaging foam in sheets, loads of cardboard boxes in a variety of sizes, stryofoam beads and the like and plenty of scrap paper.
I know the paper and cardboard can go on the compost, but there's so much of it I haven't got enough greens to mix it with! Bubble rap is great for insulating greenhouses and banana trees but I haven't got either of them any more!
So I'm in need of ideas, fire away!
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I've used the beads in the bottom of large pots to keep the weight down. Lots of flowers and some veg (salad leaves etc) are relatively shallow rooting, so you don't need so much soil anyway. Also helps with drainage to an extent
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are the styrofoam beads styrofoam or corn starch, if they melt on contact with water they are corn starch and can be composted.
Grendel
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Some of both I think, but I'll be keeping an eye and I'll do a test in work on Monday morning! If they compost, do they count of greens or browns?
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Use the bubble wrap to insulate your Christmas spuds :D
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You could always bury your cardboard as part of a Bean trench.
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Use the boxes for weed suppressant.
Flatten them out, there should be a flap either side of the "body" of the box. Make a slit in the soil with your spade and push one of the flaps into the soil, firming it in. Then lay the box flat and push the other flap into another slit made in the same way. Move along to the next box. I find it is easies to do a row at a time. Takes a little while to do but seems to keep the worst of the weeds at bay. Make sure you overlap the cardboard boxes as you go to stop the weeds getting through. You can then cut crosses in the cardboard to plant through.
I've used this method last year for my cabbages and it really seemed to help, am currently covering as much as I can ready to plant through next year. Eventually the cardboard rots down, but mine has lasted for a about a year so I'll be putting it on the compost and putting down new this year.
Hope this helps
Caroline :)