The interesting thing is we are only 75 miles from Paul Gautschi (Founder of the Back to Eden Garden) however, in just that short distance is a very big difference in climate. Where he lives only gets 17" annual rainfall where we get 120-160". With that being said, we have to deal with slugs far more than those in Sequim do and hiding in wood is their favorite place. So wood chips are not the best thing in our area. The other crazy thing is we live in a logging community yet finding wood chips is not as easy as one would think here. SO yes, we all have to find what works best for us! :D
Leaves and cardboard, collect all the leaves you can (no black walnut) if you can mulch them do, and cardboard before fall comes. Pull your ending garden growth, leave in garden, lay down cardboard, put as many leaves as you want on top. The Works will take care of the rest all winter. On our 3rd year we didn't have to till and added only organic manure and humus on top at first snow melt. We are going to plant soon, this is our 4th year and we are direct planting again this year. Becoming wheelchair bound we began building our beds up to 2' high which we are cont. With garden rails added every year. So we know our soil levels increase 3-4"s each yr. We also only water from our rain water off house in barrels, and a spring available to us from a free gravity piping our town set up many, many moons ago.
Yep, I find leaves and grass clippings to be my favorite mulch, plus adding whatever chop and drop herbs I grow like borage, amaranth, dandelion, and more. :)
I suggest leaving the straw on the ground, add the manure, then till. It really helps to aerate and amend the Ozarks clay. Best of Luck, 8 generations of Ozark gardening and we always learn new things and have disappointments. I have a friend who always says “I’ve never met a pessimistic gardener.”
@@reedackerman9041 Or you could just do what she said and then a put down cover crop and in two months it has more nitrogen than you know what to do with...
Did you ever try shredded leaves? I live in the city of Memphis. I called tree services also. They all want $250+ for truckload. And then, you would get who knows what, trash included, mixed with it. We have plenty of leaves to mulch. So I bought a leaf/wood chipper/shredder. In the fall and winter, I collect fallen limbs and bags of leaves to shred. Love. Love. Love.
$250 a truck load!!! HOLY COW!! I have had about 9 or 10 truck loads dumped off within the last two months! The only "trash" I found was a shovel and a Stihl blower! I knew what tree service delivered it so I called them to tell them my find. They were happy.
Tim Carroll, thank you!!!! When you can't get free wood chips, buy a wood chipper and make your own! Amazing idea! What is wrong with all of these people? They can't get FREE wood chips so they bad mouth BTE. It takes at least one year for BTE to be effective. Two years would be better. And weeds? You can not just put down wood chips and stop pulling weeds. I see so many videos of homesteader's gardens and the weeds are out of control because no one works their gardens. Yet they complain the BTE doesn't work for them.
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It sounds like you’ve got a good plan. One suggestion I would make is Lavender... lavender body wash, lavender moisturizer, etc. The ticks don’t like it. My job requires me to walk through the weeds a lot, plus I’m trying to create actual soil on a reclaimed strip mine... the place is just one big tick nest. Before I started using lavender, my showers had become little more than just tick finding missions, 2 or 3 a day was becoming the norm. Now, I may get 2 or 3 year. The lovely scent is just a bonus! :) Good luck!
Susie Keeton that is Awesome! I had no idea ticks dislike lavender. I do agree every place and soil is different. Being aware of what you are using is the most important part. Learned something about the black walnut tree also Informational day!
Thank you for being honest about your problems.. I bought a big wood chipper because wood chipping is not a known technique where my permaculture project takes place and I am going to woodchip all the prunings,dry branches, remainings from sunflower,corn crops etc.. bit by bit until I cover at least under the trees... (Central Turkey)If you have enough trees to prune , buying a woodchipper and building up your source might be a solution..Or in the future, when you establish your trees, this might work.. Good luck guys..
For ticks plant mint. Leave your straw. Add leaves. You can also add gravel as a mulch. Worms love it. You can try straw nail gardening or hugiculture.
I bag my grass and leaves and put around plants individually. Free resource and works well. You guys will do well what ever yall decide to do . You guys are hard workers and dedicated.
David Crowson we did the same with leaves and grass around our fruit trees, plus rabbit or chicken poop... and we had unbelievable amounts of cherries, apples, pears, figs, grapes, raspberries and more... never used bought fertilizer and watered maybe twice a year when extremely dry, more as a precaution than apparent necessity ... in beautiful British Columbia.
me and my buddy use just a cardboard layer over the whole garden for a weed barrier. It works well and composts into the soil by the next year. I throw straw ontop to make it pretty.It works great.
Good video. Back to Eden is not for everyone. I am with you since I also have a large garden and live in a rural area. I mulch after I plant with grass clippings. Just till it all in the fall. Works great.
Here in TN with the heavy clay soil, rainfall, humidity seemed to bring insects, slugs, fungus and WEEDS I abandoned Back to Eden/permaculture. As much as I wanted a no till situation, I ended up building 12" raised beds and invested in mushroom compost (bulk) soil amendments like rock dust, worm castings. I use red and black plastic mulch to keep the weeds under control. And this year I'm planning a 12'x12' greenhouse with dutch bucket hydroponics for tomatoes and green peppers, NFT for strawberries and Kratky hydroponic tub/rafts for lettuce and greens. I'll be using the inground raised beds for root crops, beans, peas, corn. Living on a Mtn we get a thick mist that usually burns off around 8-9:a.m. but it's a real challenge with tomatoes and keeping fungus down. So I believe the greenhouse will allow me to control for that and be able to grow 9 months out of the year. Hobby gardening is much easier but when you're objective is self sufficiency, it sure gets tough quick.
Great video and very informative. Ticks are a problem here in SC. I had no idea they like straw. For our daughter's bridal shower, we got straw bails for folks to site since it was an outside event. Then we set up straw bails with horse tack for photo booth which was fun. However, folks were complaining about ticks. We had sprayed the garden just for that event to avoid bugs trying to steal food. But the ticks were a surprise. Now I know it was a bonus that came with the straw. Never, ever again. Thanks for that info.
I think you made the right choice for this season. We have 3 acres of land that had been farmed conventionally for years which means the nutrients and organic matter in the soil is pretty much zero. We can't get enough wood chips to cover 3 acres so instead we are growing our own mulch through cover crops and mowing. Perhaps you could use the cover crop method if you had another area that you want a future garden. It takes a few years to build up a good layer of mulch and suppress all the weeds. The Living Web Farms RUclips channel has some great presentations on using cover crops.
I don't agree with following a certain type of gardening. I study the ideas and watch many you tube channels. When I plan to plant a particular thing or in a particular spot, I take stock of my resources and decide what is the best solution for the current project.
That's the best thing to do really. Every region in the country/the world is going to have different climates, soil, water, temperature, etc. so following a gardening method that works for someone in, let's say, Northeast Texas most likely isn't going to work for me in Central Oregon
Hi we found our selves in the same situation when we moved. I looked around for organic material for our very hard clay soil and our serious weed area we wanted the garden. I saw the Lord provided leaves as a ground cover so I used a tarp raked up large amounts from our woods and covered the ground in the garden space. We did yank what we could and dumped them on about a foot deep. not to hard.It worked excellent and as the leaves break down they make beautiful soil. And its free! We used the riding mower to , but those spots didn't last and some weeds can poke thru. Where we put the plants or seeds we dug up those spots and implemented and the leaves up against our plants. Did notice after a very very strong windstorm some of our leaves blown. so we started lightly sprinkled the little woodchips we made which held them down. We have a huge heirloom garden also. We raise guineas for our tick issue, they really do work. And a dog on a zip line at night for the deer and rabbits. :)
I hear you. I live in Mo. right outside of St. Louis and there is so much heat in the summer. the only thing that I have had success with are peppers. I love your channel because I love the idea of learning through trial and error. Thank-God for my local farmers market.
In Kansas I see the same thing. I mow as low as i can, cover and wait.... then repeat every so often. the chickens have been pretty helpful off season.
thanks for explaining! I am in a wheelchair and have called a tree company and he said when they get a job near us they will dump me some loads of wood chips, but that's no guarantee of when that will happen. so I have been raking leaves and topsoil, the really good smelling soil, and putting them on the space I want to make into a garden! of course my power chair has broken down. now I have to wait until the new one gets here before I can continue! if I don't get the wood chips I'll probably do raised beds. love your channel thanks for sharing your homestead with us!
I am dealing with the same issue. No company will deliver chips out to me. We have a lot of ticks too, so that is good to know about the straw. I will let them stay back in the woods haha. Thanks for sharing.
Hey guys I would till , tarp, and then flame weed. It just seems to work better here . Like they do at never sink farms. As far as compost I run a lawn maintenence co. And have access to grass clippings from yards that are not treated with anything. You might find a local lawn care company that would supply you with clippings from yards that are not treated at no cost. Makes great compost.
I used straw once on my lettuce raised bed and got aphids all over my lettuce. Have never used straw mulch since. I've instead been using landscape fabric and covering it with wood chips and punching a a large enough hole when planting. It's been working like a charm because it keeps the soil temperature stable and it also keep the soil constantly moistened. Rarely need to water in-ground and raised beds in southern Maryland.
Great vid...one suggestion is to try a small plot using town mulch for back to eden, just to see if it will work...also you can rent a large chipper for a day and clean out your woods to make a big pile of chips to supplement...just a couple of ideas to help you keep from putting all your eggs in one basket...keep up the good work!
Thanks for sharing your struggles and ideas. Living in rural Missouri does present some unique challenges. Even though I knew not to plant near black walnut trees, it never crossed my mind about how much would be in the mulch. I’m sure you’ve saved many of us a great deal of frustration.
I tried BTE over and over and it has not worked for me either. I thought maybe it was me but it drew in more bugs and like you, I had tons of weeds. There is no miracle garden except the one that you find that works for you. What I'm finding is praying over my land first, then good ole fashion tilling works best here for me. BTE works for a lot of people so I'm not knocking it. It just doesn't work for some. I will say though, I've laid just plain cardboard and put rabbitamire on top of that and it has worked for me. I just don't use straw or chips. I have hard clay soil and the ground I have worked on is now black and soft. Really great soil now. I do make my own compost and use that too. You just have to find what works. Thanks for the video.
I do wonder if it (the Back to Eden method) does not work is because of the amount or depth of wood chips. Years ago my neighbor told me it takes 6" of mulch to knock out weeds. I will give it a shot and document my findings.
As I see it, one of the main points in KNF is the fact that mulch made from the plants you are growing in a plot (row) are used because they have already absorbed the needed nutrients needed for good growth and by composting this residew (sp?) and covering the same row with it, growing same crop in it your plants do not have to struggle so much to get what they need (hope this makes sense).....I see that a lot of the big stores here in California like to buy produce from framers who practice KNF because the quality of the produce is so much better then chemically raised crops........I like the fact that so much of your food stuff is canned, freeze dryed, stored for future use..thanks for sharing your knowledge on how you do it
We've planted hairy vetch in the fall to grow as a cover crop in some our garden. It's so lush and green right now, and my husband will till that in very soon and plant our crops. It's wonderful for fertilizer and also helps keep some weeds at bay.
I’m so glad you mentioned about the black walnut wood chips being a natural herbicide. It’s also extremely dangerous to have it around horses, I don’t know about goats. Thanks for saying honestly that just because certain things work for one person, it might not work for all.
Thanks for this message! I am starting my own back-to-Eden orchard and garden. Just started receiving my first loads of chips and know that it depends on where the tree crews have work as to where they drop chips, but I go into this with a lot of hope and firm determination to remember NO system is perfect, some seasons will have more failures than successes, but whatever I can manage to glean is a blessing. Good luck, you two - sending you wishes for success.
You should have put the manure under the cardboard. When you put the straw under the manure, you are temporarily sucking all of the nitrogen out of the manure and the straw decomposes very fast due to all of the nutrients and bacteria in the manure. As the bottom layer of straw decomposes, the nitrogen becomes available again and it helps decompose the remaining straw on top quicker. You want to have as thick a single layer of straw as possible. Another reason for putting the manure down first is that it creates air cavities between the manure and the cardboard, which helps to keep the cardboard from decomposing as fast so it maintains its weed barrier ability. You need at least 2 layers of cardboard everywhere for it to work properly. You want to put the manure, cardboard, and straw down in the fall if possible to give the manure time to decompose, if you are using fresh manure. With the decomposed manure that you are using may be used early spring if it is decomposed enough.
I really needed to hear those words "don't feel bad or guilty if it didn't work for you". I tried the ruth stout method on my homestead and the results were tons of weeds and the feeling of failure and frustration. Also tried back to eden method but wood chips are hard to come by. Your video encouraged me to try yet another method - raised garden beds. Good luck with your new gardening method for 2018.
After you put the fabric down add cardboard before your other layers to help with killing out weeds, from hard to kill weeds. We hated straw or grass. We only found later that you could use the straw and manure composted. Buy old round bails that the farmer can't use anymore. So that takes 1-2 years to make from cold compost. You can keep doing that to the side for a couple years till you can use then it's a deep dark composted soil. Keep it far away. Get chickens to keep ticks if you can.
OMGosh, I'm in Middle TN and I feel like I'm listening to my own story as I did back to eden in my garden last year. I also did the whole cardboard, hay, mulch...it broke down and I now too have a ton of weeds that I can't even keep up with! Next season, I will definitely be using the black weed barrier to help control this problem.
I live in SE Colorado, weeds are horrible here. What I've always done is lay out cardboard or thick newspaper only on my walkways between my beds, then top with lawn clippings as I go all summer. Works well, I only have to weed the rows themselves, and then in the fall or the next spring, all that stuff on the walkways is well composted and can be raked up into the beds for fresh soil.
Excellent information, y'all are very smart and thoughtful in your decision making! I agree with all you're saying! TY You are quickly becoming my favorite gardening/homesteading channel!
Here in Louisiana, MO, We have the Back to Eden garden. It's taken 5 years to get thedepth we want and we are so lucky to have tree trimmers and loggers who will dump right next to the garden. Okie only problem is the six foot privacy fence that limits sunlight do we have to plant accordingly. We only have a small back yard, but we have a lot in our pantry. Really love your videos and how personable you are. I love watching you every day and even at 65 years old, I learn something new from you all the time. Were hoping to move putt of town and get a few acres so we can be more self sufficient. We'll see what God has planned! God's blessings on you and your family!
Have you tried tarping? I got the idea from Curtis Stone’s book. We are only in our second year on our homestead, but so far this method is working for us. We are battling invasive Bermuda grass in our garden space. It’s not a perfect fix for us but when combined with drip irrigation & not stirring up the the roots of the grass with plowing, the weeds are manageable. We’re still learning as well. We ran into the same issue as y’all with trying to get wood chips to our rural GA location. I appreciate your honesty & adaptability since what works for one area, may not work in another. Keep up the good work!
I am so very thankful that you are here! I truely pray that this works for you!! I have finally gotten my familys attention with all the recalls of foods from the grocery stores, that we should and can grow most of our food. I have been gardening most of my life and I am thankful that I am able to increase my garden little by little. I use mostly grass clippings and compost in my garden, but then again this has taken years!! I look forward daily for your videos and for yu continued progress! Blessings from Pittsburgh PA!!
And the ground up pallets? Many of them are treated with chemicals and you don't want that either. Missouri "soil" really isn't "soil" at all. It's rocks with red clay holding it all together. I have yet been successful digging a hole here that didn't require a pick to do it. I straw bale garden because I don't have "dirt" here. However, I also garden on a very small scale as it's just the 2 of us.....15 bales and I'm good. You do what you need to do. It's YOUR family you are growing for! Best of luck with those weeds....they are a chore here.... :)
OZARKMEL really? I've never heard of pallets being treated! I just researched it. That's pretty scary stuff that they fumigate pallets with. I had no idea!
Great video. Thanks for the detailed breakdown of what you went through and what you're trying next. Something I have read about (haven't experimented with it yet) is using white Dutch clover as a living mulch. Supposedly, it will outgrow many weeds, and since it's a legume, it fixes nitrogen in the soil. With as large of a plot as you have, and as much rain as you get out there, some kind of living mulch might be an elegant alternative to traditional mulching. Might be worth looking in to. God bless and happy gardening!
I miss the Ozarks. Yall need to get guineas for those ticks. Now how about those snakes💥sure dont miss those. As for everyone we hafta see what works best. I need a bumper sticker
Ticks are the absolute worst!!! Thanks for such a great video, it’s full of helpful info. I’m new to gardening and trying to learn as much as I can, so even though I don’t live in your area, I still picked up some interesting stuff I didn’t know: for example black walnut is a natural herbicide. That’s important! Your video is an excellent perspective and shows me how important it is to remain flexible and in an experimentation mindset. There’s no one right way to garden for everyone! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences, it’s helping gardeners everywhere get better
I think chiggers are worse. All blood suckers are nasty. Cut brush and mow fields if not grazed more often (4 or 5 times per year at least) you will be amazed by the reduction in ticks. Rodents are the primary food source so you are really controlling them. Deer don't have that many ticks.
It looks like to me that back to eden works really well out west and in the dry areas and areas with poor soil. But here in the eastern part, where we have good soil and plenty of rain, not so much. I have more trouble trying to keep stuff from growing, than growing what I want to grow. We sometimes mow out yard twice a week to keep it tamed and from seeding out. I have mulch in our landscaping. At times it is so wet and humid here, that mushrooms and other funguses grows in it and on it. Bugs like to too. As well as reptiles.
My dad would burn the garden in the fall and then put cardboard down before the first snow. In the spring he would put another layer of cardboard down and plant in holes he had made through the cardboard. He had about 1/3 of an acre in central missiouri (we grow big rocks) and hated to fuss with weeds.
We are doing just an old fashioned tilled and weeded garden. I'll work it daily to keep weeds out as best I can and have prayed to God for Him to Bless our garden with a bountiful harvest.
Great thoughts! We have to till our garden also. Hopefully in the future we can do more of the back to Eden type gardening. We have to do what works best for our individual circumstances.
Thanks for the honest video. Right now a container garden works for me, because I'm in a rental. But when we buy our property next year, I have some big decisions to make, I really appreciate watching this video. :) Watching your current videos, I'd say you are having some great success!
I mulch with as much leaves and cut grass as I can get or make from my own property. Seems to keep the weeds at bay here in zone 3. Cover crops are also a good idea. We do use a little hay also. We have no animals so unfortunately no manure but our gardens seem to do well enough.
Thankyou for making this video!!! I have been struggling with BTE on my farm for 7 years here in zone 7B in Northwest Georgia. Its just too wet and humid! We hauled ten tons of mulch last year and finally said we've had enough! we are now doing our own modified version using mulch in pathways and using man-made bed covers to prevent the weeds and protect the soil.
Sometimes you also get pests. There is no shortage of wood chips here. The tree companies will even deliver it to your property for free. The last load I accepted was full of fire ants. My neighbors still have several piles to spread. In early May, I watched termites swarm from the piles next door.
I’m doing a no till method by loosening up the natural ground (broadfork)after taking the weed and grass from the surface. I then add compost to the top amended with worm castings. Tilling tends to bring more weed pressure to the surface. My micro farm in Las Vegas was 90% weed free. I’m currently using the same method on my 6 acre farm in Washington.
I want to use that method as well but it doesn’t make sense for a market garden. I’d still use it but perhaps in a smaller area. Use many different methods. Find out what works best and run with it. You have the land. Experiment. Try your own approach.
We live in north central Arkansas and the only successful method I have found that really works is the woven row cover. Toward the end of the season the weeds actually begin to even come up through that, but at a more manageable rate than just mulch. Thanks for your video.
You used wheat straw, which is compost in a few months, pine straw is what you need. Pine straw dose not grow in high country like it does in the low sandy country.I use pine needles/straw around tomatoes & it is still holding weeds down in the early Spring of the next year. Burlap bags last one season, if you are near a coffee processing plant & coffee chaff is better then coffee ground. I use coffee chaff & coffee chaff compost. Peanut hull work well, chipped leaves in the fall, can be good in the spring. There are over 200 plants that will not grow around black walnut family, tomatoes & roses. The woven ground cover is a good bet. Nothing better than Rabbit compost!
welcome to the Ozarks. what i found was to put down 3 mil black plastic to kill the weeds. then line the walkways after removing the plastic from your rows. also try raised beds filled with compost. i had good results with herbs in raised beds but still had to pull weeds. You may also find a local small sawmill where you can get sawdust from oaks.you will need to dig down in the pile but the sawdust will be well on the way to becoming good compost material
Hey guys, be cautious of those pallets could be treated or bug sprayed, but don't be afraid of walnut, crops like corn will grow in it and after a year or so anything will grow in it ok. God Bless.
Good luck with the new plan. I'm going to use leaf mulch, and because we have to do a lot of tree cutting, we bought a chipper. It helps me get everything cleaned up, and gives me mulch/chips for our garden. One other suggestion I would make, after growing in NC clay a few years ago....one quick way to build up the soil you have is to layer leaves onto your beds and just till them in. It made a huge difference for me with the clay soil.
I'm from central Missouri (been here nearly all my life) and the black fabric has been used by many with good results, some have iffy results. Good luck on your choices! You have to do what you feel works.
Good day to you kevin & sarah from living traditions homestead !! 👍👍😁😁 Thanks for sharing your update of your homestead and what's going on throughout the day 😁😁👍👍
This story is almost identical to mine...minus homesteading in AZ (I spent several months primitive camping there, instead). I was homesteading for a couple years just north of the Missouri Ozarks (a few miles away from Truman Lake) until 2017. And yes, every.single.issue described in this video occurred with me, as well. Enter my new fiance...we are now homesteading at his family home in Michigan. :) Happy homesteading!
Thank you for this. We live in the Vegas valley (have our little urban homestead here) but bought 13 acres of raw land there in MO that we will be moving to in a few weeks. This information is good to know before we get there. 😁
Charity's Urban Farm Hill Just use well rotted manure! Nothing else. It will save you time. While you are at it, Start a worm farm for your kitchen waste processing. That will give you a source of compost as well! Try composting bocashi method as well!
Sam Nikole Sam Nikole Here on our urban farm, we do just that with the rabbit and chicken manure. So I have practice at that. And 2 years ago, I purchased some desert acclimated earth worms and put them in my garden. Once a week I dig a small trench (different locations every week), put my chopped up kitchen scraps in, and bury them for the worms to eat. Now, we have soooo many earth worms in the garden area, you can’t dig without finding several. I will look into that composting method. Thank you for the advice. 😁
Charity's Urban Farm Hill I just fill a carton box with scraps rabbit poo and weeds! Dont need to dig any holes at all. Besides, the poo, weeds and scraps are free.
The cost of straw and manure is why i grow alot of green manure. It doesn't cost much to buy a 50 pound bag of whole oats and a few bags of lentles. Or any other grain and legume combination.
I am sorry to hear about your problems but I think I know what your problem might be. You talked about straw and compost but not a top mulch. Top mulch is the most important part of sheet mulching. Straw doesn't make a great mulch because, like you said, it breaks down quickly and tends to sprout (though the weeds it sprouts are pretty easy to pull usally). It does make a good filler though for those reasons (breaking down quickly). You might check with Wright Tree service. They are in my area right now and tend to be in your area too (you are only about 60 miles away from me). They are pretty good about bringing free wood chips (do utility company work). Sounds like you have a decent plan for your new garden. I personally don't like weed fabric and find it doesn't work well for me but hope you have a different experience.
If I had only watched all your videos, I wouldn't have sent you that link to Back to Eden gardening. My bad, I lived in MO for a short while, but never gardened there. No that I am filled in, that fabric thing you do sounds brilliant! Love your vid's thanks for sharing and may God's grace bless you and your garden!
Your method is good. Missouri is an agricultural area so you should have lots of hay and straw available. As for the ticks, get some pea hens. They will eat every tick you can find and fertilize the garden to boot. Ducks will also do a good job.
When we move to our little farm we had the same issue with ticks. Ticks in the woods, in the garden,they were everywhere. So the next year we got some Guinea fowls and poof all ticks were gone. In fact our neighbors love to see our Guinea's in there yard too.
Thank you. You do a service for pointing out that gardening is not one-size-fits-all. One possibility, if you have a lot of forest on you property, is purchasing a wood chipper. The smaller ones that can grind 3" - 4" limbs, range from $600 - $1,000. (What you spent on straw would pay for the chipper in 3 - 4 years.)
Thank you for the kind words! We own a nice size wood chipper but unfortunately it is just too labor intensive to get the quantity we would need. We chipped for over 8 hours straight one day and get enough chips to cover about a 5 ft. x 5 ft. section of the garden.
Also, consider container planting, raised beds, They will take less chips and you could even buy a small chiper to take care of that, build your garden as you clean up your yard. Guineas and ducks are good for ticks. God bless you and your channel, you guys do a good job.
I live in north Idaho. My backyard (and best garden spot) is decomposed granite. Haha... I am trying the BTE gardening method this year for the second attempt. My huge mistake last year was not enough nitrogen (manure!!) to compensate for the wood chips' decomposition process AND my plant's needs. I still have wood chips left from last year's order, so I will be using those with manure- but after then, I am going to just use manure! (I think. Haha Plus, any organic matter I create on the homestead from compost, leaves, etc.) I spoke to a local nursery owner and manure was what she recommends. In any case, straight manure is more sustainable than having to chip wood. It's neat to me how SO many gardening methods exist and every one has its place somewhere. Blessings with your garden this year!
Maine has the highest rate of Lyme disease due to being a great habitat for deer. Just keep up with a good supply of those little tick pullers I had about 20 ticks after mowing one day! But things have got better by keeping the grass cut. The little buggers will fall onto you from brushing waving grass and weeds.
I know I asked you about why this method did not work for you in another one of your posted videos-- thank you for all the information and really like the information and you both ! Continued success... I have much to catch up via binge viewing of your channel. Continued success !!
I love all y'all tips. To me being a homesteader is learning to adapt and deal with changes! Thus y'all have done a good job. ❤️ Y'all. Signed a Traditionalist!
Another reason that you didn't mention for not using the free wood chips in town is that if they include pallet wood, I have heard truckers say that you never know what kind of toxic chemicals have been spilled on them and many of the pallets come from Asia and may contain invasive species of insects like Formosan termites.
I agree with bill Herrick and use leaves and grass clippings. Maple leaves are my favorite for my tomatoes. Grass mulch for the rest of the vegetables. I only add a compost concoction to my tomatoes. The rest of the vegetables I fertilize with FPJ "fermented plant juice". Korean style gardening. Under the grass and leaves are huge worms that gather year round. Grass clippings will last through the winter also with no weeds. I'm also in zone 6b in Ky. and we have Bionic weeds but this is my method and it works for me. You can learn the FPJ method from "Chris Trump" and "David the Good". I've always had good luck using the anaerobic style teas. You don't need all the air pumps and mess. Does stink a little. Sorry for the long post but, I don't post that often.
See we have the same problems. We are into our third year of waiting for chips, getting chips/spreading chips, cardboarding...We used American guinea pigs to till. Geese are great for weeding. But it all takes time. Your point though about time and resources is well taken. One other thing...consider a hoop house with irrigation to cope with heat, and try Swiss chard. It is a biannual, so it Will grow and loosen soil. I am currently building chicken /rabbit tunnels to place at garden boundaries. This idea is to suppress weeds at edge from progressing into garden. A little work , so much fun watching chickens travel the tunnels.
Good luck. We were going to try the cardboard method but was worried about the same issue with the weeds. Looking forward to your results as we try to find our best method. Thanks for sharing!
Plus, when I used wood chips for mulch, they were a haven for cock roaches and ants! Totally grossed me out. I've always preferred dry grass clippings but they are hard to get now and probably have chemicals in them
Oh, I have a few problems with ticks. We have to be careful, the chickens have been our best helpers. We also have had to watch out about black walnuts.
New subscriber here, may I suggest if you have local farms ask them if they have old round bales of hay, the more rotted the better. I unroll them in my garden but I put it on VERY thick 12"-18" has worked the best for me. I get them for free in the summer to use the following year so I do plan ahead, this year I am going to try to get 4 and just let them rot to use next year. I like this better than wood chips, and hardly any weeds grow. Have fun gardening, I really enjoy it.
I have the same problem here in Minnesota and we have lots of trees. I only once was able to get a truckload of chips when someone was cutting in the neighborhood and i literally had to stop them at a break and ask them for their chips. I have called people and businesses and the city...no luck. Around here they sell their chips to a company who then packages it and turns around and sells it. I did score like a dozen bags for like 2$ a bag from that company but not really enough to do the back to eden gardening. So we go forward like you all and put down leaves and straw.
I really enjoy your videos, even though I am not a homesteader. But I admire your way of living and wish I how the guts to try. I like the way you two work together, even in the informative talks you give. You seem to know what the other is thinking. Great team work.😉😉😉
Good luck with the black plastic, hope it works for you. I had/have the same issues and tried the black plastic. Even the 25 year stuff didn't hold up even 1 year. I tried 4 different brands, some lasted better than others but none held up. I have gone back to the Eden (sorta, buy mulch can't get what is .called for and fighting the weeds, every year does get better. I just got a few chickens to turn loose in garden area off season, and bought a 'flame thrower" to try burning/killing weeds. So far that shows the most promise. Good luck.
The best for your area is to break the soil with a tiller and use cover crops to stop weeds by planting thick. You get to benefits with cover crop weed control and green manure building the soil up!
thank you very helpful, i just started looking into back to eden gardening but that was one thing i noticed is that its mimicking what's done in nature but its depending heavily on the use of machines (wood chippers) and tractors
Thank you for the video and your explanations for the change in your gardening. I know raised bed gardening helps with a lot of your issues and gives you better control, but if you need a great volume of produce to sell for your income on the farm that is not going to work. I know of many a gardener/farmer that has great success with tilled beds....so, fire-up that 'Troybilt' I saw in the background and 'git'er dun'! Good Harvest, Health and God Bless
What you will have to do is design your own compost program. I haven’t checked prices but hay has to be the way to go unless you can figure away to haul straw from Illinois. I see a lot of cardboard that doesn’t seem to move around stores. That may figure in.
You need ducks, they drill up the weeds, and over winter lay your straw down, that is the winning combination. See Matt’s garden videos on 50 ducks in a hot tub. And he’s growing in Canada 🇨🇦
The interesting thing is we are only 75 miles from Paul Gautschi (Founder of the Back to Eden Garden) however, in just that short distance is a very big difference in climate. Where he lives only gets 17" annual rainfall where we get 120-160". With that being said, we have to deal with slugs far more than those in Sequim do and hiding in wood is their favorite place. So wood chips are not the best thing in our area. The other crazy thing is we live in a logging community yet finding wood chips is not as easy as one would think here.
SO yes, we all have to find what works best for us! :D
Rain Country yes Sequim is the banana belt. I lived there for awhile.
Leaves and cardboard, collect all the leaves you can (no black walnut) if you can mulch them do, and cardboard before fall comes. Pull your ending garden growth, leave in garden, lay down cardboard, put as many leaves as you want on top. The Works will take care of the rest all winter. On our 3rd year we didn't have to till and added only organic manure and humus on top at first snow melt. We are going to plant soon, this is our 4th year and we are direct planting again this year. Becoming wheelchair bound we began building our beds up to 2' high which we are cont. With garden rails added every year. So we know our soil levels increase 3-4"s each yr. We also only water from our rain water off house in barrels, and a spring available to us from a free gravity piping our town set up many, many moons ago.
The closest place to us that we can go for sun! haha!
Yep, I find leaves and grass clippings to be my favorite mulch, plus adding whatever chop and drop herbs I grow like borage, amaranth, dandelion, and more. :)
I live in Shelton, Same story wood chips are neither economical or helpful...Grass clippings and mulched brush is the best way to go here.
Its important to share what works for you and what doesn't.Everybodys situation is differient
I suggest leaving the straw on the ground, add the manure, then till. It really helps to aerate and amend the Ozarks clay. Best of Luck, 8 generations of Ozark gardening and we always learn new things and have disappointments. I have a friend who always says “I’ve never met a pessimistic gardener.”
Nitrogen tie-up if you till in all that carbon. It's fine though, just wait 5 years and it might be workable again.
@@reedackerman9041 Or you could just do what she said and then a put down cover crop and in two months it has more nitrogen than you know what to do with...
Did you ever try shredded leaves? I live in the city of Memphis. I called tree services also. They all want $250+ for truckload. And then, you would get who knows what, trash included, mixed with it. We have plenty of leaves to mulch. So I bought a leaf/wood chipper/shredder. In the fall and winter, I collect fallen limbs and bags of leaves to shred. Love. Love. Love.
$250 a truck load!!! HOLY COW!! I have had about 9 or 10 truck loads dumped off within the last two months! The only "trash" I found was a shovel and a Stihl blower! I knew what tree service delivered it so I called them to tell them my find. They were happy.
Tim Carroll I use shredded leaves every year. They're full of nutrients. And I have plenty in my yard!
Tim Carroll, thank you!!!! When you can't get free wood chips, buy a wood chipper and make your own! Amazing idea! What is wrong with all of these people? They can't get FREE wood chips so they bad mouth BTE. It takes at least one year for BTE to be effective. Two years would be better. And weeds? You can not just put down wood chips and stop pulling weeds. I see so many videos of homesteader's gardens and the weeds are out of control because no one works their gardens. Yet they complain the BTE doesn't work for them.
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. It sounds like you’ve got a good plan. One suggestion I would make is Lavender... lavender body wash, lavender moisturizer, etc. The ticks don’t like it. My job requires me to walk through the weeds a lot, plus I’m trying to create actual soil on a reclaimed strip mine... the place is just one big tick nest. Before I started using lavender, my showers had become little more than just tick finding missions, 2 or 3 a day was becoming the norm. Now, I may get 2 or 3 year. The lovely scent is just a bonus! :)
Good luck!
Susie Keeton that is Awesome! I had no idea ticks dislike lavender. I do agree every place and soil is different. Being aware of what you are using is the most important part. Learned something about the black walnut tree also Informational day!
If that is the case, I will remove all my grass and plant lavender everywhere!! Thanks for the tip!!!
Good to know thanks
Avon skin so soft. Ticks, fleas, chiggers, gnats, mosquitoes, horse flies.
Thank you for being honest about your problems.. I bought a big wood chipper because wood chipping is not a known technique where my permaculture project takes place and I am going to woodchip all the prunings,dry branches, remainings from sunflower,corn crops etc.. bit by bit until I cover at least under the trees... (Central Turkey)If you have enough trees to prune , buying a woodchipper and building up your source might be a solution..Or in the future, when you establish your trees, this might work.. Good luck guys..
For ticks plant mint. Leave your straw. Add leaves. You can also add gravel as a mulch. Worms love it. You can try straw nail gardening or hugiculture.
I love your guys honesty, and that you share with us what works for you and what doesn’t, and why. It’s very helpful. You guys are great.
Thanks, Lorella!
We have been doing back to Eden Garden for probably 5 years now. This year we will be incorporating something a little more modern for weed control.
What did you do for the weed control?
I bag my grass and leaves and put around plants individually. Free resource and works well. You guys will do well what ever yall decide to do . You guys are hard workers and dedicated.
David Crowson we did the same with leaves and grass around our fruit trees, plus rabbit or chicken poop... and we had unbelievable amounts of cherries, apples, pears, figs, grapes, raspberries and more... never used bought fertilizer and watered maybe twice a year when extremely dry, more as a precaution than apparent necessity ... in beautiful British Columbia.
me and my buddy use just a cardboard layer over the whole garden for a weed barrier. It works well and composts into the soil by the next year. I throw straw ontop to make it pretty.It works great.
Good video. Back to Eden is not for everyone. I am with you since I also have a large garden and live in a rural area. I mulch after I plant with grass clippings. Just till it all in the fall. Works great.
Here in TN with the heavy clay soil, rainfall, humidity seemed to bring insects, slugs, fungus and WEEDS I abandoned Back to Eden/permaculture. As much as I wanted a no till situation, I ended up building 12" raised beds and invested in mushroom compost (bulk) soil amendments like rock dust, worm castings. I use red and black plastic mulch to keep the weeds under control. And this year I'm planning a 12'x12' greenhouse with dutch bucket hydroponics for tomatoes and green peppers, NFT for strawberries and Kratky hydroponic tub/rafts for lettuce and greens. I'll be using the inground raised beds for root crops, beans, peas, corn. Living on a Mtn we get a thick mist that usually burns off around 8-9:a.m. but it's a real challenge with tomatoes and keeping fungus down. So I believe the greenhouse will allow me to control for that and be able to grow 9 months out of the year. Hobby gardening is much easier but when you're objective is self sufficiency, it sure gets tough quick.
Great video and very informative. Ticks are a problem here in SC. I had no idea they like straw. For our daughter's bridal shower, we got straw bails for folks to site since it was an outside event. Then we set up straw bails with horse tack for photo booth which was fun. However, folks were complaining about ticks. We had sprayed the garden just for that event to avoid bugs trying to steal food. But the ticks were a surprise. Now I know it was a bonus that came with the straw. Never, ever again. Thanks for that info.
I think you made the right choice for this season. We have 3 acres of land that had been farmed conventionally for years which means the nutrients and organic matter in the soil is pretty much zero. We can't get enough wood chips to cover 3 acres so instead we are growing our own mulch through cover crops and mowing. Perhaps you could use the cover crop method if you had another area that you want a future garden. It takes a few years to build up a good layer of mulch and suppress all the weeds. The Living Web Farms RUclips channel has some great presentations on using cover crops.
I don't agree with following a certain type of gardening. I study the ideas and watch many you tube channels. When I plan to plant a particular thing or in a particular spot, I take stock of my resources and decide what is the best solution for the current project.
That's the best thing to do really. Every region in the country/the world is going to have different climates, soil, water, temperature, etc. so following a gardening method that works for someone in, let's say, Northeast Texas most likely isn't going to work for me in Central Oregon
@@pelicanman96 Nor me in Northeast Ohio...
@@pelicanman96 Or even me in South Texas.
Hi we found our selves in the same situation when we moved. I looked around for organic material for our very hard clay soil and our serious weed area we wanted the garden. I saw the Lord provided leaves as a ground cover so I used a tarp raked up large amounts from our woods and covered the ground in the garden space. We did yank what we could and dumped them on about a foot deep. not to hard.It worked excellent and as the leaves break down they make beautiful soil. And its free! We used the riding mower to , but those spots didn't last and some weeds can poke thru. Where we put the plants or seeds we dug up those spots and implemented and the leaves up against our plants. Did notice after a very very strong windstorm some of our leaves blown. so we started lightly sprinkled the little woodchips we made which held them down. We have a huge heirloom garden also. We raise guineas for our tick issue, they really do work. And a dog on a zip line at night for the deer and rabbits. :)
I hear you. I live in Mo. right outside of St. Louis and there is so much heat in the summer. the only thing that I have had success with are peppers. I love your channel because I love the idea of learning through trial and error. Thank-God for my local farmers market.
In Kansas I see the same thing. I mow as low as i can, cover and wait.... then repeat every so often. the chickens have been pretty helpful off season.
We are working to see how our first year of gardening in Missouri will be. We too are worried about the ticks so thanks for the heads up.
thanks for explaining! I am in a wheelchair and have called a tree company and he said when they get a job near us they will dump me some loads of wood chips, but that's no guarantee of when that will happen. so I have been raking leaves and topsoil, the really good smelling soil, and putting them on the space I want to make into a garden! of course my power chair has broken down. now I have to wait until the new one gets here before I can continue! if I don't get the wood chips I'll probably do raised beds. love your channel thanks for sharing your homestead with us!
I am dealing with the same issue. No company will deliver chips out to me. We have a lot of ticks too, so that is good to know about the straw. I will let them stay back in the woods haha. Thanks for sharing.
Hey guys I would till , tarp, and then flame weed. It just seems to work better here . Like they do at never sink farms. As far as compost I run a lawn maintenence co. And have access to grass clippings from yards that are not treated with anything. You might find a local lawn care company that would supply you with clippings from yards that are not treated at no cost. Makes great compost.
I used straw once on my lettuce raised bed and got aphids all over my lettuce. Have never used straw mulch since. I've instead been using landscape fabric and covering it with wood chips and punching a a large enough hole when planting. It's been working like a charm because it keeps the soil temperature stable and it also keep the soil constantly moistened. Rarely need to water in-ground and raised beds in southern Maryland.
Great vid...one suggestion is to try a small plot using town mulch for back to eden, just to see if it will work...also you can rent a large chipper for a day and clean out your woods to make a big pile of chips to supplement...just a couple of ideas to help you keep from putting all your eggs in one basket...keep up the good work!
Thanks for sharing your struggles and ideas. Living in rural Missouri does present some unique challenges. Even though I knew not to plant near black walnut trees, it never crossed my mind about how much would be in the mulch. I’m sure you’ve saved many of us a great deal of frustration.
I tried BTE over and over and it has not worked for me either. I thought maybe it was me but it drew in more bugs and like you, I had tons of weeds. There is no miracle garden except the one that you find that works for you. What I'm finding is praying over my land first, then good ole fashion tilling works best here for me. BTE works for a lot of people so I'm not knocking it. It just doesn't work for some. I will say though, I've laid just plain cardboard and put rabbitamire on top of that and it has worked for me. I just don't use straw or chips. I have hard clay soil and the ground I have worked on is now black and soft. Really great soil now. I do make my own compost and use that too. You just have to find what works. Thanks for the video.
I do wonder if it (the Back to Eden method) does not work is because of the amount or depth of wood chips. Years ago my neighbor told me it takes 6" of mulch to knock out weeds. I will give it a shot and document my findings.
As I see it, one of the main points in KNF is the fact that mulch made from the plants you are growing in a plot (row) are used because they have already absorbed the needed nutrients needed for good growth and by composting this residew (sp?) and covering the same row with it, growing same crop in it your plants do not have to struggle so much to get what they need (hope this makes sense).....I see that a lot of the big stores here in California like to buy produce from framers who practice KNF because the quality of the produce is so much better then chemically raised crops........I like the fact that so much of your food stuff is canned, freeze dryed, stored for future use..thanks for sharing your knowledge on how you do it
We've planted hairy vetch in the fall to grow as a cover crop in some our garden. It's so lush and green right now, and my husband will till that in very soon and plant our crops. It's wonderful for fertilizer and also helps keep some weeds at bay.
I’m so glad you mentioned about the black walnut wood chips being a natural herbicide. It’s also extremely dangerous to have it around horses, I don’t know about goats. Thanks for saying honestly that just because certain things work for one person, it might not work for all.
Thanks for this message! I am starting my own back-to-Eden orchard and garden. Just started receiving my first loads of chips and know that it depends on where the tree crews have work as to where they drop chips, but I go into this with a lot of hope and firm determination to remember NO system is perfect, some seasons will have more failures than successes, but whatever I can manage to glean is a blessing. Good luck, you two - sending you wishes for success.
You should have put the manure under the cardboard. When you put the straw under the manure, you are temporarily sucking all of the nitrogen out of the manure and the straw decomposes very fast due to all of the nutrients and bacteria in the manure. As the bottom layer of straw decomposes, the nitrogen becomes available again and it helps decompose the remaining straw on top quicker. You want to have as thick a single layer of straw as possible. Another reason for putting the manure down first is that it creates air cavities between the manure and the cardboard, which helps to keep the cardboard from decomposing as fast so it maintains its weed barrier ability. You need at least 2 layers of cardboard everywhere for it to work properly. You want to put the manure, cardboard, and straw down in the fall if possible to give the manure time to decompose, if you are using fresh manure. With the decomposed manure that you are using may be used early spring if it is decomposed enough.
I really needed to hear those words "don't feel bad or guilty if it didn't work for you". I tried the ruth stout method on my homestead and the results were tons of weeds and the feeling of failure and frustration. Also tried back to eden method but wood chips are hard to come by. Your video encouraged me to try yet another method - raised garden beds. Good luck with your new gardening method for 2018.
Good luck to you too! We are all just trying to do the best we can.
After you put the fabric down add cardboard before your other layers to help with killing out weeds, from hard to kill weeds. We hated straw or grass. We only found later that you could use the straw and manure composted. Buy old round bails that the farmer can't use anymore. So that takes 1-2 years to make from cold compost. You can keep doing that to the side for a couple years till you can use then it's a deep dark composted soil. Keep it far away. Get chickens to keep ticks if you can.
OMGosh, I'm in Middle TN and I feel like I'm listening to my own story as I did back to eden in my garden last year. I also did the whole cardboard, hay, mulch...it broke down and I now too have a ton of weeds that I can't even keep up with! Next season, I will definitely be using the black weed barrier to help control this problem.
I live in SE Colorado, weeds are horrible here. What I've always done is lay out cardboard or thick newspaper only on my walkways between my beds, then top with lawn clippings as I go all summer. Works well, I only have to weed the rows themselves, and then in the fall or the next spring, all that stuff on the walkways is well composted and can be raked up into the beds for fresh soil.
Excellent information, y'all are very smart and thoughtful in your decision making! I agree with all you're saying! TY You are quickly becoming my favorite gardening/homesteading channel!
Informative, yes everyone has to do whats best for them!
Here in Louisiana, MO, We have the Back to Eden garden. It's taken 5 years to get thedepth we want and we are so lucky to have tree trimmers and loggers who will dump right next to the garden. Okie only problem is the six foot privacy fence that limits sunlight do we have to plant accordingly. We only have a small back yard, but we have a lot in our pantry.
Really love your videos and how personable you are. I love watching you every day and even at 65 years old, I learn something new from you all the time. Were hoping to move putt of town and get a few acres so we can be more self sufficient. We'll see what God has planned! God's blessings on you and your family!
Have you tried tarping? I got the idea from Curtis Stone’s book. We are only in our second year on our homestead, but so far this method is working for us. We are battling invasive Bermuda grass in our garden space. It’s not a perfect fix for us but when combined with drip irrigation & not stirring up the the roots of the grass with plowing, the weeds are manageable. We’re still learning as well. We ran into the same issue as y’all with trying to get wood chips to our rural GA location. I appreciate your honesty & adaptability since what works for one area, may not work in another. Keep up the good work!
I am so very thankful that you are here! I truely pray that this works for you!! I have finally gotten my familys attention with all the recalls of foods from the grocery stores, that we should and can grow most of our food. I have been gardening most of my life and I am thankful that I am able to increase my garden little by little. I use mostly grass clippings and compost in my garden, but then again this has taken years!! I look forward daily for your videos and for yu continued progress!
Blessings from Pittsburgh PA!!
And the ground up pallets? Many of them are treated with chemicals and you don't want that either. Missouri "soil" really isn't "soil" at all. It's rocks with red clay holding it all together. I have yet been successful digging a hole here that didn't require a pick to do it. I straw bale garden because I don't have "dirt" here. However, I also garden on a very small scale as it's just the 2 of us.....15 bales and I'm good. You do what you need to do. It's YOUR family you are growing for! Best of luck with those weeds....they are a chore here.... :)
OZARKMEL really? I've never heard of pallets being treated! I just researched it. That's pretty scary stuff that they fumigate pallets with. I had no idea!
Great video. Thanks for the detailed breakdown of what you went through and what you're trying next. Something I have read about (haven't experimented with it yet) is using white Dutch clover as a living mulch. Supposedly, it will outgrow many weeds, and since it's a legume, it fixes nitrogen in the soil. With as large of a plot as you have, and as much rain as you get out there, some kind of living mulch might be an elegant alternative to traditional mulching. Might be worth looking in to. God bless and happy gardening!
I miss the Ozarks. Yall need to get guineas for those ticks. Now how about those snakes💥sure dont miss those. As for everyone we hafta see what works best. I need a bumper sticker
Ticks are the absolute worst!!! Thanks for such a great video, it’s full of helpful info. I’m new to gardening and trying to learn as much as I can, so even though I don’t live in your area, I still picked up some interesting stuff I didn’t know: for example black walnut is a natural herbicide. That’s important! Your video is an excellent perspective and shows me how important it is to remain flexible and in an experimentation mindset. There’s no one right way to garden for everyone! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences, it’s helping gardeners everywhere get better
I think chiggers are worse. All blood suckers are nasty. Cut brush and mow fields if not grazed more often (4 or 5 times per year at least) you will be amazed by the reduction in ticks. Rodents are the primary food source so you are really controlling them. Deer don't have that many ticks.
It looks like to me that back to eden works really well out west and in the dry areas and areas with poor soil. But here in the eastern part, where we have good soil and plenty of rain, not so much. I have more trouble trying to keep stuff from growing, than growing what I want to grow. We sometimes mow out yard twice a week to keep it tamed and from seeding out. I have mulch in our landscaping. At times it is so wet and humid here, that mushrooms and other funguses grows in it and on it. Bugs like to too. As well as reptiles.
My dad would burn the garden in the fall and then put cardboard down before the first snow. In the spring he would put another layer of cardboard down and plant in holes he had made through the cardboard. He had about 1/3 of an acre in central missiouri (we grow big rocks) and hated to fuss with weeds.
genius
We are doing just an old fashioned tilled and weeded garden. I'll work it daily to keep weeds out as best I can and have prayed to God for Him to Bless our garden with a bountiful harvest.
Great thoughts! We have to till our garden also. Hopefully in the future we can do more of the back to Eden type gardening. We have to do what works best for our individual circumstances.
Thanks for the honest video. Right now a container garden works for me, because I'm in a rental. But when we buy our property next year, I have some big decisions to make, I really appreciate watching this video. :) Watching your current videos, I'd say you are having some great success!
I mulch with as much leaves and cut grass as I can get or make from my own property. Seems to keep the weeds at bay here in zone 3. Cover crops are also a good idea. We do use a little hay also. We have no animals so unfortunately no manure but our gardens seem to do well enough.
I have found leaves and grass make the best mulch in our area, and they are free and easy to find :D
But where would they get leaves? ;->
I love your thought process and matter of fact ways.
Thankyou for making this video!!! I have been struggling with BTE on my farm for 7 years here in zone 7B in Northwest Georgia. Its just too wet and humid! We hauled ten tons of mulch last year and finally said we've had enough! we are now doing our own modified version using mulch in pathways and using man-made bed covers to prevent the weeds and protect the soil.
You are right. Do what works for your area happy gardening.
Hey there you guys have a plan that sounds solid!! 🌱🌱
Sometimes you also get pests. There is no shortage of wood chips here. The tree companies will even deliver it to your property for free. The last load I accepted was full of fire ants. My neighbors still have several piles to spread. In early May, I watched termites swarm from the piles next door.
Thanks for your honesty, as well as your encouragement. You're doing great!
I’m doing a no till method by loosening up the natural ground (broadfork)after taking the weed and grass from the surface. I then add compost to the top amended with worm castings. Tilling tends to bring more weed pressure to the surface. My micro farm in Las Vegas was 90% weed free. I’m currently using the same method on my 6 acre farm in Washington.
The Back to Eden method did SO well for us in the Phoenix, AZ area. Not so much here.
I want to use that method as well but it doesn’t make sense for a market garden. I’d still use it but perhaps in a smaller area. Use many different methods. Find out what works best and run with it. You have the land. Experiment. Try your own approach.
We live in north central Arkansas and the only successful method I have found that really works is the woven row cover. Toward the end of the season the weeds actually begin to even come up through that, but at a more manageable rate than just mulch. Thanks for your video.
You used wheat straw, which is compost in a few months, pine straw is what you need. Pine straw dose not grow in high country like it does in the low sandy country.I use pine needles/straw around tomatoes & it is still holding weeds down in the early Spring of the next year. Burlap bags last one season, if you are near a coffee processing plant & coffee chaff is better then coffee ground. I use coffee chaff & coffee chaff compost. Peanut hull work well, chipped leaves in the fall, can be good in the spring. There are over 200 plants that will not grow around black walnut family, tomatoes & roses. The woven ground cover is a good bet.
Nothing better than Rabbit compost!
welcome to the Ozarks. what i found was to put down 3 mil black plastic to kill the weeds. then line the walkways after removing the plastic from your rows. also try raised beds filled with compost. i had good results with herbs in raised beds but still had to pull weeds. You may also find a local small sawmill where you can get sawdust from oaks.you will need to dig down in the pile but the sawdust will be well on the way to becoming good compost material
Hey guys, be cautious of those pallets could be treated or bug sprayed, but don't be afraid of walnut, crops like corn will grow in it and after a year or so anything will grow in it ok.
God Bless.
Good luck with the new plan. I'm going to use leaf mulch, and because we have to do a lot of tree cutting, we bought a chipper. It helps me get everything cleaned up, and gives me mulch/chips for our garden. One other suggestion I would make, after growing in NC clay a few years ago....one quick way to build up the soil you have is to layer leaves onto your beds and just till them in. It made a huge difference for me with the clay soil.
I'm from central Missouri (been here nearly all my life) and the black fabric has been used by many with good results, some have iffy results. Good luck on your choices! You have to do what you feel works.
Good day to you kevin & sarah from living traditions homestead !! 👍👍😁😁 Thanks for sharing your update of your homestead and what's going on throughout the day 😁😁👍👍
This story is almost identical to mine...minus homesteading in AZ (I spent several months primitive camping there, instead). I was homesteading for a couple years just north of the Missouri Ozarks (a few miles away from Truman Lake) until 2017. And yes, every.single.issue described in this video occurred with me, as well. Enter my new fiance...we are now homesteading at his family home in Michigan. :) Happy homesteading!
Thank you for this. We live in the Vegas valley (have our little urban homestead here) but bought 13 acres of raw land there in MO that we will be moving to in a few weeks. This information is good to know before we get there. 😁
Charity's Urban Farm Hill Just use well rotted manure! Nothing else. It will save you time. While you are at it, Start a worm farm for your kitchen waste processing. That will give you a source of compost as well!
Try composting bocashi method as well!
Sam Nikole Sam Nikole Here on our urban farm, we do just that with the rabbit and chicken manure. So I have practice at that. And 2 years ago, I purchased some desert acclimated earth worms and put them in my garden. Once a week I dig a small trench (different locations every week), put my chopped up kitchen scraps in, and bury them for the worms to eat. Now, we have soooo many earth worms in the garden area, you can’t dig without finding several. I will look into that composting method. Thank you for the advice. 😁
Charity's Urban Farm Hill I just fill a carton box with scraps rabbit poo and weeds! Dont need to dig any holes at all. Besides, the poo, weeds and scraps are free.
Charity's Urban Farm Hill And burying your kitchen waste is the bokashi I mentioned! Blessings to you!
I'm curious how many people moved to Missouri because of the 'leaked' navy pole shift maps????
The cost of straw and manure is why i grow alot of green manure. It doesn't cost much to buy a 50 pound bag of whole oats and a few bags of lentles. Or any other grain and legume combination.
I am sorry to hear about your problems but I think I know what your problem might be. You talked about straw and compost but not a top mulch. Top mulch is the most important part of sheet mulching. Straw doesn't make a great mulch because, like you said, it breaks down quickly and tends to sprout (though the weeds it sprouts are pretty easy to pull usally). It does make a good filler though for those reasons (breaking down quickly). You might check with Wright Tree service. They are in my area right now and tend to be in your area too (you are only about 60 miles away from me). They are pretty good about bringing free wood chips (do utility company work). Sounds like you have a decent plan for your new garden. I personally don't like weed fabric and find it doesn't work well for me but hope you have a different experience.
If I had only watched all your videos, I wouldn't have sent you that link to Back to Eden gardening. My bad, I lived in MO for a short while, but never gardened there. No that I am filled in, that fabric thing you do sounds brilliant! Love your vid's thanks for sharing and may God's grace bless you and your garden!
Your method is good. Missouri is an agricultural area so you should have lots of hay and straw available. As for the ticks, get some pea hens. They will eat every tick you can find and fertilize the garden to boot. Ducks will also do a good job.
When we move to our little farm we had the same issue with ticks. Ticks in the woods, in the garden,they were everywhere. So the next year we got some Guinea fowls and poof all ticks were gone. In fact our neighbors love to see our Guinea's in there yard too.
Whoever gave this video a thumbs down... must know it all! Thanks for the great content... your videos are very informative.
Thank you. You do a service for pointing out that gardening is not one-size-fits-all.
One possibility, if you have a lot of forest on you property, is purchasing a wood chipper. The smaller ones that can grind 3" - 4" limbs, range from $600 - $1,000. (What you spent on straw would pay for the chipper in 3 - 4 years.)
Thank you for the kind words! We own a nice size wood chipper but unfortunately it is just too labor intensive to get the quantity we would need. We chipped for over 8 hours straight one day and get enough chips to cover about a 5 ft. x 5 ft. section of the garden.
I have had to, at various times, to adjust even from one area to another to make things work so I understand.
Also, consider container planting, raised beds, They will take less chips and you could even buy a small chiper to take care of that, build your garden as you clean up your yard. Guineas and ducks are good for ticks. God bless you and your channel, you guys do a good job.
I live in north Idaho. My backyard (and best garden spot) is decomposed granite. Haha... I am trying the BTE gardening method this year for the second attempt. My huge mistake last year was not enough nitrogen (manure!!) to compensate for the wood chips' decomposition process AND my plant's needs. I still have wood chips left from last year's order, so I will be using those with manure- but after then, I am going to just use manure! (I think. Haha Plus, any organic matter I create on the homestead from compost, leaves, etc.) I spoke to a local nursery owner and manure was what she recommends. In any case, straight manure is more sustainable than having to chip wood. It's neat to me how SO many gardening methods exist and every one has its place somewhere. Blessings with your garden this year!
love your channel, the best part is you let us be part of you journey thank you
Maine has the highest rate of Lyme disease due to being a great habitat for deer. Just keep up with a good supply of those little tick pullers I had about 20 ticks after mowing one day! But things have got better by keeping the grass cut. The little buggers will fall onto you from brushing waving grass and weeds.
I do the straw and manure but with a silage tarp on top. I can’t get chips either. Depriving the light makes all the difference.
I know I asked you about why this method did not work for you in another one of your posted videos-- thank you for all the information and really like the information and you both ! Continued success... I have much to catch up via binge viewing of your channel. Continued success !!
I love all y'all tips. To me being a homesteader is learning to adapt and deal with changes! Thus y'all have done a good job. ❤️ Y'all. Signed a Traditionalist!
Another reason that you didn't mention for not using the free wood chips in town is that if they include pallet wood, I have heard truckers say that you never know what kind of toxic chemicals have been spilled on them and many of the pallets come from Asia and may contain invasive species of insects like Formosan termites.
I agree with bill Herrick and use leaves and grass clippings. Maple leaves are my favorite for my tomatoes. Grass mulch for the rest of the vegetables. I only add a compost concoction to my tomatoes. The rest of the vegetables I fertilize with FPJ "fermented plant juice". Korean style gardening. Under the grass and leaves are huge worms that gather year round. Grass clippings will last through the winter also with no weeds. I'm also in zone 6b in Ky. and we have Bionic weeds but this is my method and it works for me. You can learn the FPJ method from "Chris Trump" and "David the Good". I've always had good luck using the anaerobic style teas. You don't need all the air pumps and mess. Does stink a little. Sorry for the long post but, I don't post that often.
See we have the same problems. We are into our third year of waiting for chips, getting chips/spreading chips, cardboarding...We used American guinea pigs to till. Geese are great for weeding. But it all takes time. Your point though about time and resources is well taken. One other thing...consider a hoop house with irrigation to cope with heat, and try Swiss chard. It is a biannual, so it Will grow and loosen soil. I am currently building chicken /rabbit tunnels to place at garden boundaries. This idea is to suppress weeds at edge from progressing into garden. A little work , so much fun watching chickens travel the tunnels.
A little late with this but I would till in the straw. Weeds have germinated. Plant cover this fall.
Good luck. We were going to try the cardboard method but was worried about the same issue with the weeds. Looking forward to your results as we try to find our best method. Thanks for sharing!
Plus, when I used wood chips for mulch, they were a haven for cock roaches and ants! Totally grossed me out. I've always preferred dry grass clippings but they are hard to get now and probably have chemicals in them
Oh, I have a few problems with ticks. We have to be careful, the chickens have been our best helpers. We also have had to watch out about black walnuts.
New subscriber here, may I suggest if you have local farms ask them if they have old round bales of hay, the more rotted the better. I unroll them in my garden but I put it on VERY thick 12"-18" has worked the best for me. I get them for free in the summer to use the following year so I do plan ahead, this year I am going to try to get 4 and just let them rot to use next year. I like this better than wood chips, and hardly any weeds grow. Have fun gardening, I really enjoy it.
I am a master gardener and have been for 30 years. We have 4 acres of garden on 84 acres. Our gardens our amazing.
I have the same problem here in Minnesota and we have lots of trees. I only once was able to get a truckload of chips when someone was cutting in the neighborhood and i literally had to stop them at a break and ask them for their chips. I have called people and businesses and the city...no luck. Around here they sell their chips to a company who then packages it and turns around and sells it. I did score like a dozen bags for like 2$ a bag from that company but not really enough to do the back to eden gardening. So we go forward like you all and put down leaves and straw.
I really enjoy your videos, even though I am not a homesteader. But I admire your way of living and wish I how the guts to try. I like the way you two work together, even in the informative talks you give. You seem to know what the other is thinking. Great team work.😉😉😉
Try guinea hens for tick control, a flock of them would kill all the ticks around you, they absolutely love them!
Good luck with the black plastic, hope it works for you. I had/have the same issues and tried the black plastic. Even the 25 year stuff didn't hold up even 1 year. I tried 4 different brands, some lasted better than others but none held up. I have gone back to the Eden (sorta, buy mulch can't get what is .called for and fighting the weeds, every year does get better. I just got a few chickens to turn loose in garden area off season, and bought a 'flame thrower" to try burning/killing weeds. So far that shows the most promise. Good luck.
The best for your area is to break the soil with a tiller and use cover crops to stop weeds by planting thick. You get to benefits with cover crop weed control and green manure building the soil up!
thank you very helpful, i just started looking into back to eden gardening but that was one thing i noticed is that its mimicking what's done in nature but its depending heavily on the use of machines (wood chippers) and tractors
Thank you for the video and your explanations for the change in your gardening. I know raised bed gardening helps with a lot of your issues and gives you better control, but if you need a great volume of produce to sell for your income on the farm that is not going to work. I know of many a gardener/farmer that has great success with tilled beds....so, fire-up that 'Troybilt' I saw in the background and 'git'er dun'! Good Harvest, Health and God Bless
What you will have to do is design your own compost program. I haven’t checked prices but hay has to be the way to go unless you can figure away to haul straw from Illinois. I see a lot of cardboard that doesn’t seem to move around stores. That may figure in.
You need ducks, they drill up the weeds, and over winter lay your straw down, that is the winning combination. See Matt’s garden videos on 50 ducks in a hot tub. And he’s growing in Canada 🇨🇦
We have ducks! They are awesome