I did it this year too. I had a whole dumpster load of compost delivered to my house, and had a pandemic’s worth of Amazon boxes in cardboard. I also had some fallen tree branches that I cut up.
The areas where it went cardboard -> branches & twigs -> leaves n crap -> compost, are the areas that are doing the best right now. In areas where it was just cardboard -> compost, it took much longer for my plants to get established. However, eventually they did! The big key was making sure to keep that cardboard wet. If you wet it down really good, and then wet the compost on top, the roots have a much, much easier time digging in there. Bonus points if you can add a couple inches of mulch on top of your compost.
Now I’m finding there’s so much compost that it’s making the weeds go fucking nuts, it’s wild to see how “life finds a way” in some areas.
But yeah, it worked out decently, just required enough water and time. Also thyme. No, seriously, using creeping thyme was a great way to help get the compost & soil to do its thing and firm up so that it could hold other plants.
Probably 3-4 months? I had things planted, but they didn’t really start taking off for a couple months there. One side I didn’t put anything in to grow, and it’s completely overtaken with volunteer morning glories and passion flower vines. Burying soaker hoses about an inch under the mulch helped to loosen that cardboard up so my other plants could break through with their roots.
I did it this year too. I had a whole dumpster load of compost delivered to my house, and had a pandemic’s worth of Amazon boxes in cardboard. I also had some fallen tree branches that I cut up.
The areas where it went cardboard -> branches & twigs -> leaves n crap -> compost, are the areas that are doing the best right now. In areas where it was just cardboard -> compost, it took much longer for my plants to get established. However, eventually they did! The big key was making sure to keep that cardboard wet. If you wet it down really good, and then wet the compost on top, the roots have a much, much easier time digging in there. Bonus points if you can add a couple inches of mulch on top of your compost.
Now I’m finding there’s so much compost that it’s making the weeds go fucking nuts, it’s wild to see how “life finds a way” in some areas.
But yeah, it worked out decently, just required enough water and time. Also thyme. No, seriously, using creeping thyme was a great way to help get the compost & soil to do its thing and firm up so that it could hold other plants.
Thank you for this great reply. About how long did the beds take to get established?
Probably 3-4 months? I had things planted, but they didn’t really start taking off for a couple months there. One side I didn’t put anything in to grow, and it’s completely overtaken with volunteer morning glories and passion flower vines. Burying soaker hoses about an inch under the mulch helped to loosen that cardboard up so my other plants could break through with their roots.