Gardener Reuses Empty Toilet Paper Rolls to Protect His Plants During Winter Months: ‘Cut Up...’

Day after day, millions of Americans use toilet paper for their hygiene needs. Once all the paper has been stripped away, all that is left is a hardy cardboard tube clinging to the bathroom stand. According to Statista, an average American uses around 141 toilet paper rolls every year. In a popular TikTok, Gardening With Ish (@gardening.with.ish) demonstrated a cool way to repurpose these flimsy cardboard tubes for gardening after you have used up the paper roll.

“Today in the garden, I'm gonna show you three nifty ideas you can use cardboard loo rolls in your garden,” the cheery gardener told the viewers while standing in a garden with a bundle of empty cardboard tubes scooped around the fingers of his hands like giant rings. The video then transitioned into a greenhouse-like setting where the gardener stood in front of a counter wearing a brown and orange apron. Behind him was a vertical garden with shelves slung with potted plants.

Facing the camera, in front of him, was a slab covered in soil and a brown planter sitting atop it. Inside the planter were several cardboard tubes filled with soil. “The first thing you can do with your cardboard tubes is make little seedling pots, and these work fantastically. Because they are thin cardboards, they will naturally decompose over the next couple of months,” he explained. Continuing the explanation, he picked up one of the tubes, crammed with soil, and elaborated on how to use it to plant new seedlings.

“Start your seedlings off in the first three or four weeks. And once they start to grow, instead of taking them out and potting them up, simply put these in a bigger pot or the ground, and these will slowly decompose in the ground, causing very little root disturbance,” Ish said. Next, the video showed him squatting beside a hollow bed dug into the garden soil, with some more empty cardboard tubes held in his hands.

He gave a sweet look at the camera and then let go of one of the tubes. “If you're trying to start to make your own compost, these work absolutely fantastic, too. You can simply just chuck the tubes in and pile that down with layers of organic material,” he said, adding that the worms “absolutely love this stuff. It will break away and give you some pretty good compost.”

In the next setting, Ish appeared while kneeling on a grassy lawn against a crossbar fence, sharing even more thoughts on why those trashy cardboard tubes aren’t, in fact, that trashy. These tubes, he said, work as a “really good thermal layer” for plants when frost comes up. “Cut up one of these tubes and lay it flat on the ground, and all of a sudden, you've got yourself a really good weed membrane that over the next few months, will slowly break down. While it’s been doing that, it's protecting your plants from any weeds growing up.”

Other gardeners hopped in to share similar hacks they’ve learned or implemented in their garden. “I fill them with kitchen waste (vegetables, fruit, paper, egg shells, etc) then dig into the garden beds when full,” commented @Mendhimin. @nick shared, “I sow runner beans and peas in them as they don't like root when planting out.” These comments are hints for you to collect those unloved cardboard tubes. Instead of abandoning these items in the bin, tell them that you need them to protect your plants.

You can follow Gardening With Ish (@gardening.with.ish) on TikTok for easy gardening hacks.

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