The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Old paper becomes mulch

Decluttering

Shredded-paper mulchThe shelves behind my desk saw a major overhaul this past weekend. The area probably still looks cluttered and messy to you, but believe me, if I'd taken a before photo, you would be able to tell the difference!

As a bonus, I scored three shredder-runs worth of old phone books, junk mail, and no-longer-needed-written-in notebooks to turn into garden mulch. This time around, the blueberries were the lucky recipients --- three plants are now all mulched and ready to repel the weeds of spring.



Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


Ive used shredded paper for wprm bins but never shiny & or heavy inked paper. For mulch do you watch the type?
Comment by Jim Mon Jan 19 09:01:25 2015
Jim --- Good question! I consider the quality of paper to be (from best to worst): black and white newsprint, black and white computer-type paper, non-glossy newsprint with colored ink, glossy colored paper of any type. I'll use the first two without batting an eyelash and will mix in a moderate amount of the third time. The really glossy, colored paper, though, isn't worth using.
Comment by anna Wed Jan 21 18:40:05 2015





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.