new material to try out

flowerbug

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we were doing our normal errand run around a few weekends ago. at the big box store they had some large sheets of paper between layers of items on the pallet and so we grabbed some of them to use as smothering material. not quite card stock or craft paper, but it should be useful at least for one season of smothering. i have plenty of spots to use it too... when it starts falling apart we can get cardboard or another layer of this or just bury it... no more wood chips to put on top so it will be left to the elements. will need some rocks or chunks of wood to hold it down with the winds/rains.

no printing on it, looks ok, we'll see what the worms think of it... :)

note this is only a temporary smothering/cover and i don't expect to get anything more than one season out of it (i don't expect more than one or two seasons out of cardboard).
 

Prairie Rose

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oooo, i know exactly what you are talking about, it comes in on some of the pallets at work. unfortunately we sell our used cardboard and the big corporate 'they' is cracking down on it going missing. apparently they pay someone to sit in an office and figure out how much we should be generating, and to yell at us when we don't meet our numbers.

let us know how it works as a smothering paper....it comes in such nice big pieces i might have to steal a few if it works well
 

flowerbug

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oooo, i know exactly what you are talking about, it comes in on some of the pallets at work. unfortunately we sell our used cardboard and the big corporate 'they' is cracking down on it going missing. apparently they pay someone to sit in an office and figure out how much we should be generating, and to yell at us when we don't meet our numbers.

let us know how it works as a smothering paper....it comes in such nice big pieces i might have to steal a few if it works well

we get some nice sized cardboard chunks from one of the local body shops when we have a truck to haul them... it saves them time to not have to break it down to put it out with their trash so they're happy to give it to us. the only negative is that at times there are glued on pieces of styrofoam or tapes/labels used that have to come off.

interesting that they're able to sell cardboard as i thought the paper recycling places would only take it for free - with the current recycle glut i figured that would be even worse.

it should work out ok one way or another, free organic material is always useful here even if i just have to end up burying it. every square foot i can smother instead of having to weed or mow is good for me.

as for us and the big box store as of yet they have not put us on restriction when we leave we often have a lot more on our cart in box tops and box flats and other useful scraps besides what we buy. they have bins of used boxes/box tops/flats for people to take along the way out. we usually have a pretty full cart.
 

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