SHARE THIS VIDEO IF YOU HATE WEEDING! 20% Off Tower Gardens! teamgrow.us/collections/garden-planters 00:00 Intro 00:19 Without The One Thing 00:30 Doing The One Thing 01:20 Initial Weed Barrier 02:25 How Thick to Mulch 03:18 Mistakes When Mulching 03:51 What Wood Chips are Best 04:51 Benefits of Using Wood Chips 06:40 Soil After Wood Chips and Before Wood chips 08:33 Invasive Weeds 09:19 Common Wood Chip Misconceptions 10:24 Back to Eden Method 11:15 Weed Barrier Alternatives 12:03 How to Get Wood Chips 13:15 Final Thoughts
I love your channel and have been an avid follower for years. Do you have suggestions for material use, other than metal, or plastic/biodegradable plastic, that encourage a natural forest, that are still convenient?
My entire back yard is a huge mix of weeds. I collected cardboard from local businesses, mowed everything to the lowest point I could, layer the cardboard down, layer my garden beds down, then a top layer of wood chips. I filled my bed using a similar method as hugelculture, topped it off with local organic topsoil. I have zero weeds coming through! I checked underneath the cardboard and it successfully smothered the weeds. It's pretty awesome to see 👀
Well it will be wet when it rains anyway…and matter is to stop that weed from growing through that cardbaord.I think dry cardboard initially will do way better job.
I love wood chips!!! Cardboard then wood chips, then in a couple of years, do it again! I've changed the whole micro climate in my garden, and it's bursting with earthworms!
Did you know that in his first few videos, he used to shout, "Let's go!" Unfortunately, the neighbors complained, so he was forced to whisper it instead.
no, he just said it more and more excitedly, year after year, until finally now he's so excited that it hits a decibel that is outside of our human ears' range of hearing, so it sounds like whispering.
I'm so happy I watched this. I bought landscape fabric and still have a window of time to return it. I'm going with woodchips. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Love Tuck! ♥♥♥♥♥
Unfortunately, wood chips have not been victorious over Bermuda grass. Wood chips hide the growth of underground rhizomes and I have had to dig deep to get the roots out.
My 12” of wood chips created a beautiful Bermuda lawn. It’s the nicest grass in my entire lawn. And no, it was not supposed to be. Bermuda loves wood chips !
I have a few things that grow through rhizomes. I had to do a layer of landscape cloth and wood chips on top. Otherwise the weeds will grow through any of these other things… even 10-12 inches of soil like recommended. They take quite a while to smother and will push under or through anything other than good cloth. I’m hoping I can smother it out over time and then get rid of the cloth.
On the day I went out early to weed three overgrown shallow beds i made with a scrap picnic table. This upload gets put up like a message from the gardening gods. St. Prigioni comes bestowing wisdom upon me.
RUclips purging messages of me kindly responding to creators is next level censorship. Hopefully this stays up. Just wanted to say King Tuck reigns supreme over his backyard kingdom. Give him some belly rubs for me.
CANT WAIT,it's like Xmas around here, 72 tomato plants, peppers hot, and green, YOU Taught me well, 4th yr into it. GETTING READY TO HARDEN 🪴 THIS WEEK. ENJOY . 😊
Too many gardeners got confused about the 'Back to Eden' method. Although Paul Gautschi uses wood chips in his orchard, he uses COMPOST in his vegetable garden... Some compost from his chicken run and some compost from tub ground organics.
It sounds like you are confused, he uses the compost with screened woodchips in the vegetable gardens. The common mistake people make is planting into woodchips instead of the dirt underneath the chips, or the dont sift the woodchips through a screen to get the big chunks out. Also other mistake is people use store bought chips treated with chemicals, or they don't use aged woodchips. Been doing it veganic for a decade now without chicken or cow feices just fine, so even the need of chickens is a misconception for success
James, after dealing with wire grass in my blueberry patch yesterday, your video on getting rid of weeds showed up. Perfect timing! Tuck is cuter than the law allows! 💖💖
Most people who have trouble don't make the chips thick enough. It takes A LOT of chips to cover a yard. It takes a lot of work (I hire workers to spread it for me) to apply it, but it lasts for years and the rewards are great. I say minimum six inches.
I mulch heavily with a combination of mulches (woodchips, hay and grass clipping) and the weeds just grow straight through them! Especially GRASS it grows through everything! I dump another load of mulch on everything that pops up and it never stops!
I've been using wood chips for 10 years plus. My culprit is the birds. They eat things with seeds and drop the seeds and fertilize them even! Yea, it's a constant battle but occasionally, I find a good plant growing that I didn't have before! Thanks bird! Don't forget to stop by the bird bath on your way out.
My neighbor and I suffer the same problem. This year she covered all her seeds outside with clear plastic cups creating an almost terrarium type environment. She planted the seed then pushed the cup down about an inch or two to secure them.
Your video is exactly what I need now! Several days I am thinking to place about 12" of woodchips to suppress weeds and brushes which I got from previous owner of this house. It was like a jungle. Another benefits get rid of weeds is decrease amount of mosquitos. And I hope Millennial Gardener is watching your video, so he will remove his plastic cover. 🤣. Big heart for Tuck❤
Don’t tell Amazon ! I do wish we could find a repurpose for styrofoam bxs we have many( medicine delivery) we even advertised to give away ,we have about 3 dozen now…
Recommend using pine needles or evergreen chips. Invasive asian jumping worms absolutely adore hardwood chips. You will be literally farming them if you lay down hardwood (provided they are in your area, though not sure there is anyplace left in the U.S. where they haven't invaded).
I mostly use a combination of the brown paper, carboard and wood chips. I poke tiny holes in the cardboard so some oxygen and water can get through, but weeds can't get through the holes I poke. I also have cats who I buy those scratch boxes for. I save the scratch boxes after my cats are done with them and lay them down in smaller areas. They're made out of cardboard but have little "cells" all through them that allow air and water to get to the soil and little creatures. I experimented with them last year, and still have no weeds where I put them down...covered with wood chips. They're breaking down beautifully! Thank you and Tuck so much for your videos! I love your channel! 😊 Many hearts for Tuck ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I just came inside from being in my backyard spreading woodchips. Love watching this video agreeing with all the benefits of woodchips. Also, I'm using woodchips to even out areas that were sloping too much and causing erosion. Yay woodchips!
Thanks! Great information. I had gravel removed from my Phoenix area backyard last fall and 6 to 8 inches of wood chips put down. Not a single weed has come through over the rainy winter. Yet my front and side yards with gravel got many pesky weeds. And the wood chips are already breaking down and building soil. I got mine through a free chip drop program that links arborists with gardeners. And many of the chips were even beautiful pine ones. But next time I might go directly to an arborist and request pine chips because the light color works with my yard.
❤❤❤s for Tuck! I just got my first chipdrop delivery last week and I'm moving it all myself with a pitchfork and wagon 💪💪 Thanks for letting me know I need to make my layers thicker!
Thank you for this video! I was just starting my research on wood chip mulching and you have provided all the info I needed. Woohoo! 👍😊💐. Hi Tuck! ❤️❤️❤️
Check out Chip Drop to see if you can get free wood chips delivered to your house! I used it in Boise, ID and I have a ton of wood chips on hand. And I mean my 4 car driveway is FULL of them and I've been parking on the street 😂
I’ve done the opposite and used living pathways with clover grasses even the dandelions have a home their bringing deep nutrient to the surface and get cut in or fed to animals if bag mowed I do 3’x 200’ beds with 5’ pathways for hoses or a zero turn mower it’s comfortable to walk bare foot
Innoculate and colonize those wood chips with edible mushrooms. Wine caps are a popular choice. It jump starts the decomposition process, helping to create more top soils faster while also providing you and your gardens with added nutrients.
❤❤❤❤ Always such amazing videos!!! I learn so so much from y'all. Tuck is absolutely so adorable. Hes working so hard!!! Your garden looks absolutely amazing!!!!!
Thank you for your ideas and what is working and why it works. I have a 50/50 garden. All in ground using wood chips on half, cardboard with straw and my cabbage patch has the crunched up leaves. Leaves are my favorite but when I travel for a couple weeks at a time the wood chip side never needs watering and thrives while I'm gone. So I mix it up like you do.
I've had a company dump woodchips on my property for about 5 years now. I have a huge mountain of them. It's so big that I park on them. It's about 25' thick. I also have a food forest and use woodchips. They work. I'm in Sussex County, De. So far, I have 3 peach, 3 apple, 9 fig, 3 cherry, and 3 pears. I also have many berry plants. We also have chickens. I keep losing my cherries to the late frost. Everything else does really well though. What species of cherry trees do you have? Do you get a good harvest. It would seem as if Jersey is a bit cooler than Delaware, so I'm wondering if I have the wrong species. Thanks brother.
❤❤❤ Sweet Tuck! Thanks for the contractor paper tip - unfortunately we find that weeds actually grow in the wood chips - they're not coming through the cardboard. But, hope springs eternal and we will try to make the chips deeper.
Love this video. It would really be a time saver for bigger properties as well. I hate having to weed eat large areas and ditches here in North Carolina.
I had access to free fresh wood chips from a local tree trimmer, and free wood mulch from the local recycling center, so I put a 3-4 inch layer on my terraced beds after the plants got big enough. Kept the weeds down and protected the fruits and vegetables from the southern heat. By next spring, there was usually less than an inch of mulch left, which usually got worked into the soil with other amendments, or raked aside and reused.
I am still working on spreading chips that were delivered to my front driveway last week. There's no access to my backyard. Definitely a workout all the shoveling and raking. Guess its use it or lose it 😅
Great video. Very to the point and informative. God knows what he's doing, so i try to mimick nature in my garden. The wood chips and leaves mimick a forest floor which is very rich and always composting. Sometimes i let certain shallow root weeds grow as a ground cover. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into your videos. I also enjoyed the video you and millennial gardener put out. That was fun.
While you cabn chip an area - we found this method works. In East SanFran Bay we have a lady where we put down 3-4 inches of chips onto her garden, 6-8 inches in her vineyard, and then 8-12-14 inches in the orchard. In 1 year, the vineyard already created 1 inch of black gold soil. Any covered over weeds, or new weeds popping up, were easily pulled out from the soft wood chips and soil. So one can easily overcome any weeds, instead of cardboard or a weed fabric etc. Just keep putting on wood chips, and easily pull out the deep root weeds in the chips and you will come out with great surface - with less energy in weed pulling,
If you also spray down diluted ammonia onto the ground before putting down the wood chips - this nitrogen helps break down the chips faster. Chip composting and breakdown sucks up nitrogen from the soil. If you speed up the chip composition, this ammonia, nitrogen is then turned back into the black gold soil - no nitrogen is lost.
I am so glad that you have provided us with helpful videos during your winter season. It was so nice to learn things that can be done during the colder months. I live in FL, I don’t have a place to grow fruit trees but I did like learning how to prune them. I built a new raised garden bed this year for my tomatoes. I plan to add a few bush beans in order to give back some Nitrogen. Thanks again for all you share 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻……❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Tuck
I couldn't be a bigger believer in wood chips! Five years ago I put 6 in on my 15 young live oaks in San Diego (it took three giant truckloads) and it smothered all the weeds, even crabgrass! My little trees are now 15 feet tall and so happy. Chips are all that James said they are, and more: a natural, free, slow release fertilizer that look good, saves water, and feeds the soil life. Long live the chips!
We have cedar saw dust available in abundance for free ... they put it in the walls for insulation and the neighbor is demolishing their old buildings and there's old mills all around with decomposed saw dust -- piles of it. Thanks for the info!!!
Mulch is a termite magnet; under the right conditions; like excessive moisture and water retention in the soil from the mulch. I had managed to keep my backyard weed free after years of hand weeding. It was hard breaking work the first two years; but every year since the weed population is much less aggressive and easier to control. I love hand weeding; it may be very time consuming but extremely relaxing!!
Bind weed and wild strawberries are what I have a lot of. I laid down mulch to suppress the grass in the garden. Worked great but the bind weed and strawberries are persistent. It’s far less work so I’m not upset about it. I have heavy clay soil and wanted to mainly use the mulch to change my soil consistency.
You are a wood-chip master! Been watching you for since before I moved to my "farm" six years ago. Because I have the tractor I got myself a pto chipper+shredder... probably my favorite attachment because it helps me easily clean up after storms and I get to use the chips! One thing to keep in mind if you have the option is that Ramial chips are best for garden mulch. Even with the setup I could use more chips... Another bonus for the shredder is I can put my cardboard in there before compost or for bedding. I gotta say those covers/netting setup you have on the raised beds looks very nice. Do the support poles screw in? I currently use cheap fiberglass frames from a generic cold frame and clip netting on. I've experimented with some magnets to hold covering on but haven't found a good design for that yet. It can get pretty windy and I have to put weights on my current system or it will blow away (sometimes it will even with the weights!)
Unfortunately, in my country we're not so rich in forests, so nowhere we can get woodchips. But I personally use a lot of straw to completely mulch the soil - like, minimal as 20 cm high. Works pretty good too.
Yes, straw or hay that is not good for the cattle anymore is a good choice. We have a friend who sold us hay bales that were mildewy and it made a great mulch.
Love the videos. So much great information packed in them. As you keep expanding and evolving your garden have you ever thought about keeping your own pollinators? Bee keeping seems to be gaining a lot of popularity these days.
I get tons of branches and limbs that fall in my yard. I got an electric chipper shredder for just over $100. It took some time, but I'm hoping it will be worth it.
That looks great but it too is a lot of work. Each year I am having fewer and fewer weeds from pulling them up by the roots. I think I might try the contractors paper for my trellis area though.
If my yard was fenced high like yours, James, this could work well. All my surrounding neighbors let dandelions and invasive weeds thrive, and the seeds blow everywhere, including germinating on the top of my mulch paths. Somewhat easier to pull out, but I will never likely be weed free. Love the channel! 🌱🌱🌱
Dandelions are edible. Also, they aerate the soil by breaking up dense soil. They can be very invasive, but you can use them for food, and they are good for the soil.
@@lindaseel9986 I'm surprised they'll grow in 6 inches of chips. I put six inches on top of crabgrass around my young live oaks. The crabgrass popped through in a couple of places after one year. I pulled it out, which was easy, and pulled right out of the six inches of chips. I then piled another four inches on top of that spot, and it never was able to break through again.
We have a huge wood chip like. Maybe 5ft by 12 ft. Had pumpkins, rhubarb, DeadNettle, Mint growing in it. All volunteer. Then again, we live n xt to open field and no fence.
Yep! The arborists pay $20 to Chip Drop each time they use their service, so adding a tip DEFINITELY moves you to the top of the list. I've received 2 truckloads within days of requesting a drop simply by adding a tip @@thomasjensen609
Everyone always says "don't mix the mulch into the soil!" except, honestly.. plants are resilient and if you have something thats a perrenial? directly plant it (if its a start and not a seed) right ontop of mulch/plant matter/ etc. often is the best way to create the best soil for them right at the roots long term, whilst allowing them to also establish a sturdier root system growing within all the organic matter. I had some cornstalks that I didnt have room to compost and had some concord grapes (and two wine grapes) that I wanted to plant... so I just direct buried the corn stalks and then put the grapes right on top before backfilling. Did that over the winter while they were dormant when I put them in ground and now that the spring is here they are growing like crazy. Also using this same method of layer mulching for weed supressing, you can just throw some potting soil on top of the carboard in lieu of the wood chips (or soil on top of the woodchips) and plant some rootcrops like raddishes or shallow root plants like strawberries right on top or in my case? I just scattered a bunch of corn seeds right on top of the carboard and covered it in soil and now they are coming up very nicely.. this works well with corn likely because that cardboard will hold onto alot of water and corn loves water early on so i imagine the roots are breaking down the cardboard for me to get the water from it.. and plants will do that... its pretty neat.
couchgrass and horstail grow trough EVERYTHING. I started my garden, put woodchips every year, to keep the weeds down, but they grow through everything. It is as bad as ever. Even this year I put a thick layer of cardboard, woodchips on top and even now I have to clear the horstail and couchgrass.
Hello I admire your garden and your videos get me excited thank you for taking time to create. I recently told a pal I was gonna do this but she said it would draw termites to my home because they especially love the cardboard pls. Tell me if you have ever noticed termites or heard this.
Innoculate those chips with some Stropharia ruggosoannulata for a extra bonus harvest and help build up a fungal network which also assists in breaking them down.
Hi James, I love your channel and have learned a lot from you. This year my garden is growing for the first time in years. Oh and I am using raised beds this year. Thank you so much for all the great information. Now I was wondering if you have ever tried cotton seed hull mulch for your beds? I really want to try it but I wanted your opinion first.
Keep the grasses and weeds from going to see. It is key! If the grasses and weeds are allowed to go to seed, the seeds can germinate in the wood chips. Stay on top of the maintenance to keep wood chips free of invasive growth. Keep up the great work!
SHARE THIS VIDEO IF YOU HATE WEEDING!
20% Off Tower Gardens! teamgrow.us/collections/garden-planters
00:00 Intro
00:19 Without The One Thing
00:30 Doing The One Thing
01:20 Initial Weed Barrier
02:25 How Thick to Mulch
03:18 Mistakes When Mulching
03:51 What Wood Chips are Best
04:51 Benefits of Using Wood Chips
06:40 Soil After Wood Chips and Before Wood chips
08:33 Invasive Weeds
09:19 Common Wood Chip Misconceptions
10:24 Back to Eden Method
11:15 Weed Barrier Alternatives
12:03 How to Get Wood Chips
13:15 Final Thoughts
I love your channel and have been an avid follower for years. Do you have suggestions for material use, other than metal, or plastic/biodegradable plastic, that encourage a natural forest, that are still convenient?
How do you get rid off ants?
They eat tomatoes and killed my plants.
I don't know what to do against them
❤
My entire back yard is a huge mix of weeds. I collected cardboard from local businesses, mowed everything to the lowest point I could, layer the cardboard down, layer my garden beds down, then a top layer of wood chips. I filled my bed using a similar method as hugelculture, topped it off with local organic topsoil. I have zero weeds coming through! I checked underneath the cardboard and it successfully smothered the weeds. It's pretty awesome to see 👀
What does layered my garden bed down mean?
@stacywachal949 I put down a layer of cardboard before placing and filling my raised bed ontop of it. Hopefully that makes more sense 💖
Cardboard is great in the garden 👍
Tuck got a little time-out for stealing all the asparagus.! 😂😂🙌🏼🙌🏼❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I can’t believe that you locked the King out of the garden😮😮😮❤❤❤for the King
And we thought it was Tuck’s garden 😂❤❤❤❤
#JusticeForTuck!
Been watching your channel for years, it's amazing to have seen the progress in your garden. Thank you for challenging us!
❤❤❤🐶🐾 We love seeing Tuck, he’s precious.
No weeds = happy soil microbes 🦠 Great information, thank you
Suggest wetting the cardboard or contractor paper before putting the woodchips down; helps it to break down better.
Well it will be wet when it rains anyway…and matter is to stop that weed from growing through that cardbaord.I think dry cardboard initially will do way better job.
I love wood chips!!! Cardboard then wood chips, then in a couple of years, do it again! I've changed the whole micro climate in my garden, and it's bursting with earthworms!
Did you know that in his first few videos, he used to shout, "Let's go!" Unfortunately, the neighbors complained, so he was forced to whisper it instead.
Didn't know that.
no, he just said it more and more excitedly, year after year, until finally now he's so excited that it hits a decibel that is outside of our human ears' range of hearing, so it sounds like whispering.
@@imageword5576 😂😂😂👍👍
@@imageword5576 I think you're right!
really, gees, that sucks for him
I love ALL The Gardening Channel With James Prigioni videos!
Let’s Gooo!!! 🐕😁❤️
@@jamesprigioni James would you record the yields of trees before adding the fertilizer to see if it worked and or how well?
❤ hands down the best gardening Channel thanks guys❤
I'm so happy I watched this. I bought landscape fabric and still have a window of time to return it. I'm going with woodchips. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Love Tuck! ♥♥♥♥♥
Landscape fabric from the store is not helpful in keeping weeds suppressed.
Unfortunately, wood chips have not been victorious over Bermuda grass. Wood chips hide the growth of underground rhizomes and I have had to dig deep to get the roots out.
yup bermuda grass is very persistent and can sent out a leader to almost unlimited lengths
My 12” of wood chips created a beautiful Bermuda lawn. It’s the nicest grass in my entire lawn. And no, it was not supposed to be. Bermuda loves wood chips !
@@justinpatterson7444 😬
Same goes for wiregrass!
I have a few things that grow through rhizomes. I had to do a layer of landscape cloth and wood chips on top. Otherwise the weeds will grow through any of these other things… even 10-12 inches of soil like recommended. They take quite a while to smother and will push under or through anything other than good cloth. I’m hoping I can smother it out over time and then get rid of the cloth.
😊❤Excellent what I'm doing right now. I'm a gardener. I do this for my job. Constantly putting myself out of business lol.
❤❤ Tuck looks so cute in that last shot in a square foot garden block chomping away on his goodies! ❤️❤️🦴🐾🐾 Jerzee James, your garden looks great!❤
On the day I went out early to weed three overgrown shallow beds i made with a scrap picnic table. This upload gets put up like a message from the gardening gods.
St. Prigioni comes bestowing wisdom upon me.
Haha! The wisdom was gifted to me by King Tuck 👑🐕
@@jamesprigioni He's a magnificent King who reigns Supreme over his backyard kingdom. Give the lil guy a good belly rub for me.
RUclips purging messages of me kindly responding to creators is next level censorship. Hopefully this stays up. Just wanted to say King Tuck reigns supreme over his backyard kingdom. Give him some belly rubs for me.
CANT WAIT,it's like Xmas around here, 72 tomato plants, peppers hot, and green, YOU Taught me well, 4th yr into it. GETTING READY TO HARDEN 🪴 THIS WEEK. ENJOY . 😊
Let’s Gooo!!! 🐕😁❤️
Too many gardeners got confused about the 'Back to Eden' method. Although Paul Gautschi uses wood chips in his orchard, he uses COMPOST in his vegetable garden... Some compost from his chicken run and some compost from tub ground organics.
It sounds like you are confused, he uses the compost with screened woodchips in the vegetable gardens. The common mistake people make is planting into woodchips instead of the dirt underneath the chips, or the dont sift the woodchips through a screen to get the big chunks out. Also other mistake is people use store bought chips treated with chemicals, or they don't use aged woodchips. Been doing it veganic for a decade now without chicken or cow feices just fine, so even the need of chickens is a misconception for success
James, after dealing with wire grass in my blueberry patch yesterday, your video on getting rid of weeds showed up. Perfect timing! Tuck is cuter than the law allows! 💖💖
James, you are so helpful and I learn much from you. 🥰😘🤗💝💕💞😀💓💖💗♥️💟 For the Young King!
Let’s Gooo!!! Me and Tuck appreciate the kind words 😁🐕❤️
❤💚🩵💙🧡🩶❤️💛🐶
These hearts are for Tuck James
Thanks! I will send them his way form ya ❤️🐕
😍
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Hi James, I do the same on my veggie plot and refresh my bed with the bottom layer of "Good stuff" from time to time 🙏🙏🌱🌱
I also used BTE method for my garden. After four years of adding chips and compost to the soil it is now rich black dirt.
I am still getting so many weeds and i used this cardboard method. I'm not sure where I went wrong. Your garden is a dream!
gaps in the cardboard + too thin of a layer of woodchips?
Most people who have trouble don't make the chips thick enough. It takes A LOT of chips to cover a yard. It takes a lot of work (I hire workers to spread it for me) to apply it, but it lasts for years and the rewards are great. I say minimum six inches.
I mulch heavily with a combination of mulches (woodchips, hay and grass clipping) and the weeds just grow straight through them! Especially GRASS it grows through everything! I dump another load of mulch on everything that pops up and it never stops!
Same here. The grass is the worst!
Yep, my weeds and grass eat right through cardboard + woodchip combo.
How deep is your mulch?
JUST LOVEEEEE YOU AND TUCK- YOUR ENERGY IS AWESOME!!!!
Let's Gooo!!! 😁🐕❤️
Thanks, James! I didn't know about the contractor's paper. That will be super convenient for some areas & is relatively cheap. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ to Tuck!
Thank you so much for helping me understand about the wood chips and how they work.
Let's go! Everyone hates weeding. We do wood chips too. Some weeds get through but oh my what a difference.
I've been using wood chips for 10 years plus. My culprit is the birds. They eat things with seeds and drop the seeds and fertilize them even! Yea, it's a constant battle but occasionally, I find a good plant growing that I didn't have before! Thanks bird! Don't forget to stop by the bird bath on your way out.
I’m also doing a wood chip garden. My birds have already planted sunflowers and millet under the feeder and I’m letting some of it grow.
My neighbor and I suffer the same problem. This year she covered all her seeds outside with clear plastic cups creating an almost terrarium type environment. She planted the seed then pushed the cup down about an inch or two to secure them.
Volunteers are the blessing from healthy trees bringing in the wildlife. That's why they call it gardening not just harvesting
Your video is exactly what I need now! Several days I am thinking to place about 12" of woodchips to suppress weeds and brushes which I got from previous owner of this house. It was like a jungle. Another benefits get rid of weeds is decrease amount of mosquitos. And I hope Millennial Gardener is watching your video, so he will remove his plastic cover. 🤣. Big heart for Tuck❤
I love chips but there is a use for plastic in certain applications.
Lots of great reminders in there for me James. Thank you for all you do. You and Tuck are awesome! 🥰
Where I work we get in a lot of shipments and the boxes were great for collecting and laying down - mostly because they were essentially free! 🤣
Don’t tell Amazon ! I do wish we could find a repurpose for styrofoam bxs we have many( medicine delivery) we even advertised to give away ,we have about 3 dozen now…
Recommend using pine needles or evergreen chips. Invasive asian jumping worms absolutely adore hardwood chips. You will be literally farming them if you lay down hardwood (provided they are in your area, though not sure there is anyplace left in the U.S. where they haven't invaded).
Another fantastic honest and truthful lecture by James Prigioni.
I mostly use a combination of the brown paper, carboard and wood chips. I poke tiny holes in the cardboard so some oxygen and water can get through, but weeds can't get through the holes I poke.
I also have cats who I buy those scratch boxes for. I save the scratch boxes after my cats are done with them and lay them down in smaller areas. They're made out of cardboard but have little "cells" all through them that allow air and water to get to the soil and little creatures. I experimented with them last year, and still have no weeds where I put them down...covered with wood chips. They're breaking down beautifully!
Thank you and Tuck so much for your videos! I love your channel! 😊 Many hearts for Tuck ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I just came inside from being in my backyard spreading woodchips. Love watching this video agreeing with all the benefits of woodchips. Also, I'm using woodchips to even out areas that were sloping too much and causing erosion. Yay woodchips!
Thanks! Great information.
I had gravel removed from my Phoenix area backyard last fall and 6 to 8 inches of wood chips put down. Not a single weed has come through over the rainy winter. Yet my front and side yards with gravel got many pesky weeds.
And the wood chips are already breaking down and building soil.
I got mine through a free chip drop program that links arborists with gardeners. And many of the chips were even beautiful pine ones. But next time I might go directly to an arborist and request pine chips because the light color works with my yard.
I am trying this with cardboard and straw. Hope it works out. Thanks!
❤️❤️❤️ thanks for this I’ve been doing this to my garden and it does make my soil so much better over time
I am so inspired by your tips I’m trying lots of them in my garden. TY! Hugs to Tuck❤
Thanks for sharing , love the cherry tree the blooms look so pretty.
❤❤❤s for Tuck!
I just got my first chipdrop delivery last week and I'm moving it all myself with a pitchfork and wagon 💪💪
Thanks for letting me know I need to make my layers thicker!
Tuck is amazing how he enjoys so many foods in the garden!!❤He’s precious ❤
Thank you for this video! I was just starting my research on wood chip mulching and you have provided all the info I needed. Woohoo! 👍😊💐. Hi Tuck! ❤️❤️❤️
Check out Chip Drop to see if you can get free wood chips delivered to your house! I used it in Boise, ID and I have a ton of wood chips on hand. And I mean my 4 car driveway is FULL of them and I've been parking on the street 😂
I’ve done the opposite and used living pathways with clover grasses even the dandelions have a home their bringing deep nutrient to the surface and get cut in or fed to animals if bag mowed I do 3’x 200’ beds with 5’ pathways for hoses or a zero turn mower it’s comfortable to walk bare foot
Innoculate and colonize those wood chips with edible mushrooms. Wine caps are a popular choice. It jump starts the decomposition process, helping to create more top soils faster while also providing you and your gardens with added nutrients.
❤❤❤❤ Always such amazing videos!!! I learn so so much from y'all. Tuck is absolutely so adorable. Hes working so hard!!! Your garden looks absolutely amazing!!!!!
Thank you for your ideas and what is working and why it works. I have a 50/50 garden. All in ground using wood chips on half, cardboard with straw and my cabbage patch has the crunched up leaves. Leaves are my favorite but when I travel for a couple weeks at a time the wood chip side never needs watering and thrives while I'm gone. So I mix it up like you do.
Always enjoy your videos and love seeing Tuck too! ❤❤❤
I've had a company dump woodchips on my property for about 5 years now. I have a huge mountain of them. It's so big that I park on them. It's about 25' thick. I also have a food forest and use woodchips. They work. I'm in Sussex County, De. So far, I have 3 peach, 3 apple, 9 fig, 3 cherry, and 3 pears. I also have many berry plants. We also have chickens. I keep losing my cherries to the late frost. Everything else does really well though. What species of cherry trees do you have? Do you get a good harvest. It would seem as if Jersey is a bit cooler than Delaware, so I'm wondering if I have the wrong species. Thanks brother.
No one on RUclips(that i have found) discussed how beneficial the mycorhyzal relationship is, thank you!!!!
Always enjoy the content/knowledge, thanx! Would like to see more behind the scenes and some of the leg work though.
❤❤❤ Sweet Tuck! Thanks for the contractor paper tip - unfortunately we find that weeds actually grow in the wood chips - they're not coming through the cardboard. But, hope springs eternal and we will try to make the chips deeper.
Thank you for your quick reply and help. James and Tuck always on the job. ♥♥♥♥💕💕♥♥♥
Love this video. It would really be a time saver for bigger properties as well. I hate having to weed eat large areas and ditches here in North Carolina.
I had access to free fresh wood chips from a local tree trimmer, and free wood mulch from the local recycling center, so I put a 3-4 inch layer on my terraced beds after the plants got big enough. Kept the weeds down and protected the fruits and vegetables from the southern heat. By next spring, there was usually less than an inch of mulch left, which usually got worked into the soil with other amendments, or raked aside and reused.
Just loving your show and share with my fellow gardeners ❤❤❤
Let's Gooo!!!
Sending ❤’s to Tuck 🐕 🐾
I am still working on spreading chips that were delivered to my front driveway last week. There's no access to my backyard. Definitely a workout all the shoveling and raking. Guess its use it or lose it 😅
It IS a lot of work to spread it. I hire workers to help me, otherwise it would take me a about a week of straight work.
Great video. Very to the point and informative. God knows what he's doing, so i try to mimick nature in my garden. The wood chips and leaves mimick a forest floor which is very rich and always composting. Sometimes i let certain shallow root weeds grow as a ground cover.
Thank you for all the time and effort you put into your videos. I also enjoyed the video you and millennial gardener put out. That was fun.
❤❤❤ for Tucker! good information James thank you.
While you cabn chip an area - we found this method works.
In East SanFran Bay we have a lady where we put down 3-4 inches of chips onto her garden, 6-8 inches in her vineyard, and then 8-12-14 inches in the orchard. In 1 year, the vineyard already created 1 inch of black gold soil. Any covered over weeds, or new weeds popping up, were easily pulled out from the soft wood chips and soil. So one can easily overcome any weeds, instead of cardboard or a weed fabric etc. Just keep putting on wood chips, and easily pull out the deep root weeds in the chips and you will come out with great surface - with less energy in weed pulling,
If you also spray down diluted ammonia onto the ground before putting down the wood chips - this nitrogen helps break down the chips faster. Chip composting and breakdown sucks up nitrogen from the soil. If you speed up the chip composition, this ammonia, nitrogen is then turned back into the black gold soil - no nitrogen is lost.
Card on a roll was a great idea
I am so glad that you have provided us with helpful videos during your winter season. It was so nice to learn things that can be done during the colder months. I live in FL, I don’t have a place to grow fruit trees but I did like learning how to prune them. I built a new raised garden bed this year for my tomatoes. I plan to add a few bush beans in order to give back some Nitrogen. Thanks again for all you share 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻……❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Tuck
I couldn't be a bigger believer in wood chips! Five years ago I put 6 in on my 15 young live oaks in San Diego (it took three giant truckloads) and it smothered all the weeds, even crabgrass! My little trees are now 15 feet tall and so happy. Chips are all that James said they are, and more: a natural, free, slow release fertilizer that look good, saves water, and feeds the soil life. Long live the chips!
Thanks so much for this video. I’m struggling with weeds now and will do this! Already have the boxes down. I enjoy watching and learning from you.
We have cedar saw dust available in abundance for free ... they put it in the walls for insulation and the neighbor is demolishing their old buildings and there's old mills all around with decomposed saw dust -- piles of it.
Thanks for the info!!!
Mulch is a termite magnet; under the right conditions; like excessive moisture and water retention in the soil from the mulch. I had managed to keep my backyard weed free after years of hand weeding. It was hard breaking work the first two years; but every year since the weed population is much less aggressive and easier to control. I love hand weeding; it may be very time consuming but extremely relaxing!!
Bind weed and wild strawberries are what I have a lot of. I laid down mulch to suppress the grass in the garden. Worked great but the bind weed and strawberries are persistent. It’s far less work so I’m not upset about it. I have heavy clay soil and wanted to mainly use the mulch to change my soil consistency.
You are a wood-chip master! Been watching you for since before I moved to my "farm" six years ago. Because I have the tractor I got myself a pto chipper+shredder... probably my favorite attachment because it helps me easily clean up after storms and I get to use the chips! One thing to keep in mind if you have the option is that Ramial chips are best for garden mulch. Even with the setup I could use more chips... Another bonus for the shredder is I can put my cardboard in there before compost or for bedding.
I gotta say those covers/netting setup you have on the raised beds looks very nice. Do the support poles screw in? I currently use cheap fiberglass frames from a generic cold frame and clip netting on. I've experimented with some magnets to hold covering on but haven't found a good design for that yet. It can get pretty windy and I have to put weights on my current system or it will blow away (sometimes it will even with the weights!)
Unfortunately, in my country we're not so rich in forests, so nowhere we can get woodchips. But I personally use a lot of straw to completely mulch the soil - like, minimal as 20 cm high. Works pretty good too.
Yes, straw or hay that is not good for the cattle anymore is a good choice. We have a friend who sold us hay bales that were mildewy and it made a great mulch.
The woodchips don't come from forests, they come from a company that cuts one tree out of a customer's yard.
Great demo on soil !!! Hey Tuck ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Great, I like it, Unfortunately in my country the wood chip very expensive and really difficult to find it.
Thank you, James!
Love the videos. So much great information packed in them. As you keep expanding and evolving your garden have you ever thought about keeping your own pollinators? Bee keeping seems to be gaining a lot of popularity these days.
❤for the 🐕
I get tons of branches and limbs that fall in my yard. I got an electric chipper shredder for just over $100. It took some time, but I'm hoping it will be worth it.
That looks great but it too is a lot of work. Each year I am having fewer and fewer weeds from pulling them up by the roots. I think I might try the contractors paper for my trellis area though.
If my yard was fenced high like yours, James, this could work well. All my surrounding neighbors let dandelions and invasive weeds thrive, and the seeds blow everywhere, including germinating on the top of my mulch paths. Somewhat easier to pull out, but I will never likely be weed free. Love the channel! 🌱🌱🌱
Dandelions are edible. Also, they aerate the soil by breaking up dense soil. They can be very invasive, but you can use them for food, and they are good for the soil.
How thick are is your chip mulch?
@@elizabethblane201 We make a good 6inches, but we also use cardboard underneath. It's amazing how the cardboard breaks down over a year.
@@lindaseel9986 I'm surprised they'll grow in 6 inches of chips. I put six inches on top of crabgrass around my young live oaks. The crabgrass popped through in a couple of places after one year. I pulled it out, which was easy, and pulled right out of the six inches of chips. I then piled another four inches on top of that spot, and it never was able to break through again.
@@elizabethblane201 Oh, I thought you meant around the garden plants. But if the seeds do blow in, yes those dandelions do grow.
I had a 4 ft mulch pile with field bind weed growing through the center of it
We have a huge wood chip like. Maybe 5ft by 12 ft. Had pumpkins, rhubarb, DeadNettle, Mint growing in it. All volunteer. Then again, we live n xt to open field and no fence.
@@lindaseel9986 the field bind weed was coming from the soil under the pile. That stuff is evil
@@maryjane-vx4dd Yes, that stuff is evil! So is Virginia Creeper. Getting under my house siding, and no matter how much I pull it out, it comes back..
Trying to do this now. If only my ChipDrop request from 3 years ago could get delivered!
You have to renew request every six months
Also add a $ tip to your request.. sometimes $40. But only until you make friends with the driver. Then you can get unlimited deliveries
Yep! The arborists pay $20 to Chip Drop each time they use their service, so adding a tip DEFINITELY moves you to the top of the list. I've received 2 truckloads within days of requesting a drop simply by adding a tip
@@thomasjensen609
Thank you this is a big problem in my garden I’ll wood chips , question how do I prune hazelnut trees?.
Hi, Tuck! ❤️
New to your videos but really enjoy them and the info. Tuck is the best ❤️❤️
I love listening to your videos and this really helped in deciding how to mulch especially ♥
I learn so much from every video.
My dog max got a kale stem this morning, he loves them , I put in freezer
Everyone always says "don't mix the mulch into the soil!" except, honestly.. plants are resilient and if you have something thats a perrenial? directly plant it (if its a start and not a seed) right ontop of mulch/plant matter/ etc. often is the best way to create the best soil for them right at the roots long term, whilst allowing them to also establish a sturdier root system growing within all the organic matter. I had some cornstalks that I didnt have room to compost and had some concord grapes (and two wine grapes) that I wanted to plant... so I just direct buried the corn stalks and then put the grapes right on top before backfilling. Did that over the winter while they were dormant when I put them in ground and now that the spring is here they are growing like crazy.
Also using this same method of layer mulching for weed supressing, you can just throw some potting soil on top of the carboard in lieu of the wood chips (or soil on top of the woodchips) and plant some rootcrops like raddishes or shallow root plants like strawberries right on top or in my case? I just scattered a bunch of corn seeds right on top of the carboard and covered it in soil and now they are coming up very nicely.. this works well with corn likely because that cardboard will hold onto alot of water and corn loves water early on so i imagine the roots are breaking down the cardboard for me to get the water from it.. and plants will do that... its pretty neat.
couchgrass and horstail grow trough EVERYTHING. I started my garden, put woodchips every year, to keep the weeds down, but they grow through everything. It is as bad as ever.
Even this year I put a thick layer of cardboard, woodchips on top and even now I have to clear the horstail and couchgrass.
Most of my yard is covered with White Pine trees. Can those pine needles alone be used for anything in the garden, or is the pH not good for anything?
Love your channel. Thanks!🤩
❤❤❤❤'s for Tuck!!
Hello I admire your garden and your videos get me excited thank you for taking time to create. I recently told a pal I was gonna do this but she said it would draw termites to my home because they especially love the cardboard pls. Tell me if you have ever noticed termites or heard this.
Love Tuck❤❤❤ your videos are the best!
Watching this.. I just put in a new request for Chip Drop! 🙌🏽💚
Let's Gooo!!!
I think we’ve had three chip drops now 😅 we’ve almost got all our lawn gone. The neighbors think we’re nuts 🤣
❤❤❤👍I’m from jersey too. Glad I found you
Innoculate those chips with some Stropharia ruggosoannulata for a extra bonus harvest and help build up a fungal network which also assists in breaking them down.
Hi James, I love your channel and have learned a lot from you. This year my garden is growing for the first time in years. Oh and I am using raised beds this year. Thank you so much for all the great information. Now I was wondering if you have ever tried cotton seed hull mulch for your beds? I really want to try it but I wanted your opinion first.
Keep the grasses and weeds from going to see. It is key! If the grasses and weeds are allowed to go to seed, the seeds can germinate in the wood chips. Stay on top of the maintenance to keep wood chips free of invasive growth. Keep up the great work!