Alias, I don't have many neighbors. ;-)

"Alias, I don't have many neighbors. ;-)"

Ah.

There was a thread a while back where
Alan (alanstrangefruit) was telling us
about this friend of his who manages
the local newspaper in his area. They
print their own papers, and they have
all of these left over end-of-rolls of
newsprint that the paper is printed from.
When the roll gets below a certain size,
it is no longer practical to print part of a
run of papers on it and then have to stop
in the middle of a printing run and change
rolls. So those partial rolls of newsprint
are discarded.

The newspaper owners had no problem with
him picking up as many end-rolls as he
wanted, free, a couple of times a week.
(That saved the paper some work hauling
them to a recycler or whatever.)

Alan wanted it for mulch, but it could be
useful for newspaper pots, too. Newspaper
on a roll without the news, something
to consider next time that you are in town.

Alan's friend was lucky. Many places the paper has figured out that those paper-ends are worth cash to day care centers, pediatrician's offices and parents. They aren't expensive - a few dollars, but not free either. And not pre-cut.

How do you hold down the newspaper mulch?

Rocks.

(But apparently that answer is too short so I had to add this bit)

You mean those rocks we spend hours picking out of the fields here in New England, the place where the main crop for hundreds of years has been rocks?

Yup. Those special hard rocks. Skip the soft rocks. Only the ones that dent shovels will do.

You should see my neighbor's garden. It's about 12" lower than the ground surrounding it because he's been picking out rocks for 30 years.

There is just something I find disturbing about picking out all the rocks to plant only to have to pick them all up and put them back in order to mulch. I will have to ponder on it a bit and ask myself "What would Grandpa do?"