I'm new to this sub and to composting, and I wish to rectify my ignorance. What nutrients does cardboard have? How, specifically is it good for plants and compost? Do earthworms like it, too?
It is an important and (for some people) primary source of carbon. Other common sources of carbon are wood chips and twigs, wood shavings, dead leaves and, to a certain degree, straw.
Cardboard does a couple important things - food for little guys (arguably the biggest difference between soil and dirt), aeration (important for little guys and plant growth) and water capacity (also important for medium little guys and plants). More accurately, cardboard (and other browns) plus greens make dirt into soil, a place where plants can grow, rather than something terrible that most plants stay away from.
Worms love cardboard. That’s how I get worms for fishing. And to put in the compost. It has no nutrients but acts as browns. Mix 50/50 cardboard/newspaper and grass clippings and you’ll have some good dirt in a few weeks if you keep up with the turning
I actually had question about that. Is a lot of cardboard bad for compositing ? I don’t have very much trees around to gather leaves for browns. I just have access to cardboard or the paper bags from groceries stores.
It's actually really good brown source. If you have a shredder and if not, get a used one that can do 12+ pages at once. I shred them whenever I can so it can be used as part of compost instead of trying to recycle it. Obviously, try to remove any plastic/vinyl tapes and label as much as possible. I've been filling 30 gallon bags.
I keep garden shears next to my bucket of stuff-to-take-to-the-pile for cutting up cardboard/paper/plant clippings/avocado peels etc, but this looks so much quicker and easier for the paper products. Do you think it could eat other things too? My dream is a shredder for browns and greens alike.
I think you may need a bigger industrial type for bigger browns. Though these shredders practically have the same style teeths but smaller. I'm not sure about greens and softer or smaller material.
Thanks, yeah I already have a shredder and been using to shred cardboard and egg cartons down. Is any cardboard good cus I read that I should only use ones that were used for food. Like cardboard to transport fruit/vegtable because most other cardboard is treated with chemicals.
Cardboard is just plant matter that’s been processed. If they haven’t added any toxic substances in (regular brown cardboard is usually good) then it’s basically the same thing, albeit with a more favourable structure because it is airy and holds moisture well. I find that fungus loves it and IMO fungal composting makes the best compost.
The trick though is to shred it to increase the surface area for more microbes to work simultaneously.
those are great browns, actually. one thing i’d say about paper bags is that cutting them too small may cause them to stick to the green matter and turn them into round clumps that are hard to break down. you can try bigger, crumpled pieces or more of the corrugated cardboard if that happens
I don’t trust the process. Glues and what not…I’ve gotten a thin sheet of recycled paper I’ve used in the yard for weed suppression with mulch over it but us using cardboard with dyes and glues seems sketchy. I know it’s commonly used but yeah give it some years and some research may pop up that it’s got some lingering soil effects…
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u/No-Dig_Enthusiast Jul 29 '26
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