Having only just recently moved to France from the UK we have an abundance of empty cardboard boxes! What to do with them?
Option 1 (terrible option really): take them to the tip.
Option 2 (better option): advertise them on Facebook and see if anyone is moving and needs them.
Option 2b (offered by a friend but we decided against): Build a cardboard fort and use nerf guns to repel all comers.
Option 3 (by far the best option and the one we chose): Use them as mulch as a barrier against weeds and to encourage microbial growth!
I only came across this technique by accident on Youtube while looking at composting techniques and the timing was just perfect as we were about to choose one of the other options to get rid of the cardboard mountain in the leanto.
The smaller of the the two beds had already had 2 bags of bought compost turned in beforehand because this bed was very clayey. The top bed being much larger I decided to do a pH test to see if it needed the compost first. It actually was quite acidic and could have done with the compost adding but as our own compost isn’t ready and I only have 20 litres left of bought compost I decided to wait and use it when planting – 20 litres wouldn’t touch the size of the that bed if I spread it all over. We’ll see how that goes once we’ve planted and start seeing results.
Now there is a question out there as to whether using cardboard is toxic and you’ll see some videos discussing that if you do a search on Youtube. I think it’s important to choose your cardboard carefully – take all the tape, staples and plastic off of the boxes first, don’t use highly inked boxes or ones that have any kind of coating on them. I’m interested to know you own thoughts on that so feel free to comment below. Here are a couple of the videos I saw when I started looking at this more on Youtube: