Dean Fenton grins as he points to strips of cardboard peeking out from under his rows of squash plants.
“Cardboard is good to use because it doesn’t disturb the soil and it keeps down the weeds,” says the retired Penn State professor.
Fenton loves his vegetables, but he doesn’t much care for spending hours on end pulling weeds. The cardboard offers the best solution. Fenton feels that the best, most plentiful crops grow from good soil with a good weed defense. And cardboard allows him to give his squash, tomatoes, peppers and greens the best environment possible.
Fenton, a native New Englander brings his Yankee ingenuity to his undertakings.
“I put down cardboard a month before I plant,” he says.
He cuts the grass short, lays the cardboard on top, covers it with compost and makes a few holes to put plants in. The weeds die in a month or so and he’s ready to plant in a weed-free spot.
But not only do Fenton’s vegetables benefit from the weed-blocking effects of his cardboard-lined beds, he gets to re-purpose loads of material that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Earlier this year, Fenton had a conversation with Tod Lewis, who owns Caspian Spas.
Lewis ends up with plenty of cardboard and other waste materials from the hot tub shipments he receives.
“I couldn’t get rid of trash without having to pay for it at the transfer station,” he says.
So, each man needed something. Lewis needed to dispose of certain items and Fenton needed certain items. Lewis now turns the former refuse over to Fenton who uses it as the base of his vegetable gardens.
And Caspian Spas also gets quite a few wood pallets, sheets of polystyrene and Styrofoam. Fenton plans to re-purpose this stuff as well. He hopes to create a tool shed and a cabin using the large pallets as walls, ceiling and floor. The Styrofoam and polystyrene will make great insulation. He explains that the Styrofoam slabs will fit into the pallets, while he can attach the nearly-indestructible polystyrene to the frames to make the structure airtight.
“They’re extra big pallets because they have to support hot tubs. They’re nice because they’re eight-by-eight,” Fenton says. “I put one up and I have a wall.”
“If he can use it, it’s better than sticking it in a landfill,” Lewis adds.
He also points out that, with a lower trash cost, he can now pass savings along to customers.
Fenton suggests that anyone can go to any business and inquire about materials they may throw out because so much of it can comprise home or garden projects.
“I get scrap wood from Room Doctor,” he says, “and they’re the same size and length so I use them for tomato stakes and bean poles.”
From the tomato stakes to the weed barriers, Fenton has found a function for nearly everything Lewis used to pay to get rid of.
Fenton concludes: “If people spend time talking to businesses, they’d see great utility for all the stuff that used to go to the dump.”
