DIY Sheet Mulching For The Home Landscaper...

Sheet mulching with cardboard provides the home Do-It-Yourself landscaper a really nice green/eco option for a weed barrier.

We needed a convenient place to put our garbage, recycle and metal scrap cans outside of the garage to make more room in the garage. After finding a nice location we weeded then leveled the area. This area was an odd mix of dirt and gravel making a great place for weeds to grow and difficult place to weed as it was hard packed. We took out enough of the dirt gravel mix to make an area that is about 2 inches below the blacktop.

"Weeds might still grow if the seeds land from above in the gravel, but since the gravel is only an inch or two deep they will not stand a chance against being pulled..."

A small retaining wall was added and some large stones.

Materials: Cardboard and then gravel.

Next was to lay down cardboard. We had some cardboard that was too dirty to recycle that was perfect for the job. We just made sure to overlap the seams and double up some since they were smaller pieces.

In another area of the yard we wanted to make an herb bed where there was gravel mixed with dirt and thus weeds. To remove the weeds from hard packed gravel was not easy. We did some searches on the Internet but did not find any answers other than spray or hand weeding. I thought to use a pitchfork to dig down and loosen the gravel under them. I called this The Earthquake Method Of Weeding (TEMOW), because once you get the pitch fork under the weeds and into the gravel, you create a little earthquake under them by shaking the pitchfork, this loosens the weeds from the gravel. Once the weeds are free you just pick them up and shake the dirt off and throw them in the wheel barrow. When the area was clear we emptied the wheel barrow.

When the area was weed free we used a 4 foot long by 2 foot wide piece of 1/2 by 1/2 inch hardware cloth (mesh) for a screen. We raked that gravel dirt mix onto the frame-less hardware cloth. I thought about building a frame which would have made shaking the gravel easier but we would not have been able to rake the gravel onto the mesh with such ease or dump the gravel into the wheel barrow. With a some effort, by lifting the mesh and shaking gravel, the dirt fell through leaving only gravel. This worked best doing small batches then dumping the clean gravel in the wheel barrow for transport. Weeds do not grow well in clean gravel but they can grow in the dirt. So removing the dirt prolongs ones efforts in creating a weed free area.

Add the gravel on top of the cardboard and rake it out flat and then walk on it to flatten it and tamp it down. Wetting the cardboard helps the cardboard relax and lay flat also. Weeds might still grow if the seeds land from above in the gravel, but since the gravel is only an inch or two deep they will not stand a chance against being pulled.

Next step was to roll the cans into place and admire our handy work...

We made the area oversize so in the future we can build a wooden cover over the cans should we need to or want to.

Links:

1Check out Sheet Mulching for more info...