Time to get growing! More Mattress up-cycle!

Earlier this year I talked about recycling mattresses and the many uses for them.  After you have used the coils and springs for protecting your trees there are a myraid of uses for the remaining fabric and sheeting on the mattress.

One such use is to take the thin, sort of interfacing like material off of the back of the mattress and use it as a landscape fabric or row cover.  I use mine mostly to keep weeds down on the huglekulture beds.  Once you have built up your huglekulture bed, after the final layer of good soil, lay the fabric over the top and then place either more soil or bark/tree chips over the top of it.  Cut holes where ever your plants will go and plant in the holes.

This hugelkulture has sat for a year and lived this way through the winter.  It helps keep the grass from taking over and this one will have berries planted in it later this spring!

 This system keeps weeds down and reuses both the mattress fabric and the chips.  My chips came from a tree chipping that was done as fuels reduction (fire reduction) on the side of the roads here in Big Lake.  The company chipping the trees and brush allowed locals to come and pick up the chips to use on projects.  It was awesome!  If you dont have that type of resource you can buy the bark chips or if you have a lot of brush rent the chipper and share the cost and work with a neighbor.

Another use for mattress leavings is as a weed suppressor in between rows in your garden or other area that needs to have weeds kept out.  Take the blanket material from the top of the mattress (sort of quilt batting looking stuff) and lay it out between rows in the garden or even along a path.  You can then cover the material with either grass clippings, bark chips, pea gravel, or straw and it will keep the weeds out all season.  You could also use that stuff as quilt batting for projects- I would only do that if you know exactly where that mattress has been though!

Stay tuned!  We've only just begun to tear the mattresses apart!