Cardboard Garden

I made this bale in a tote by using cardboard. I left my feet in the picture to show you the size of my cardboard bale. This will prove that soil is the main ingredient to any gardening. It is not the bale but the soil medium that grows your plant. Plant roots do not grow in cardboard and neither does it tap into a tight hay bale.

I used my hay bale insert and a lot of twine to make sure my bale did not come apart.  It is basically a piece a wood with coaxial cable fasteners that help hold the twine in place at the bottom of the tote.

I made the growing hole with a PVC pipe.

I dug a hole and placed my bale into it and added my soil medium to the 6" growing hole.

I then placed some extra raw soil on top of my cardboard bale. You could leave your bale uncovered, but I didn't due to fact I didn't want pill bugs living in it. I planted marigolds. 

If I do get a few weeds, they will be easy to pull up. The roots of the weeds have no place to grow. The cardboard will keep the weeds from growing deep. 

I'll probably make a few more bales with my pine straw baler. Make sure you soak the cardboard before making a bale. It is a lot easier than using dry cardboard.

When you do show off your cardboard garden or flowers, make sure you tell visitors that you have such a green thumb that you can even grow in cardboard. Get creative. Maybe I'll see you on TV explaining this new phenomenon of growing in cardboard.

There you go, you can have a cardboard garden. If you do use cardboard, get packing boxes that have no glues and very little ink on them. Many are saying cardboard is safe for the garden so let's put it to good use.