*Unpretentious* - that's the word. Mark's three acres are UA-cam's Garden of Eden, and, even better with Mark and his faithful dog instead of Adam & Eve.
And thank you for watching/supporting my channel. One of the main aims in many of my videos is to show people if "I" can do it than most people can because I'm certainly no genius! That's obvious, hahaha... Gardening or self-sufficiency no matter what scale is a fun and addictive activity to do. Cheers :)
Kaye Schlenert I mulched mine with cardboard & wood chips & the Bermuda grass ate it up. I think I have mutant Bermuda grass. It's worse than fire. It'll even hop an 8' concrete pad. Sends out runners and they dig in deep. It's triing to consume.my day lilies and aiming for my comfrey patch but I'm going to win.
bermuda is a great grass for livestock. unfortunately, for the same reason it's great for them is why it completely sucks for a gardener. I am dealing with it myself.
I do the same, eventually the cardboard has almost disappeared and I’m wondering if I could score a good price on Old used roofing shingles and then mulch over them. I haven’t thought it all the way through yet though, just a thought.
An annual sprinkling of FRESH wood chips works well controlling pathway weeds. It does so both as a weed block AND by depleting soil nitrogen in the immediate pathway area. This assumes of course, a garden area not at risk for excess water runoff. Where a pathway is next to lawn, it requires a rhizome barrier (either air gap ditch or material barrier).
I help run a 1/2 acre community garden in Florida, and we struggled for years with this problem. In the end we finally arrived at the same same solution- just grow grass and mow it regularly. The grass was doing its best to return on its own anyway. So we learned a valuable lesson to let nature be your guide. Definitely the easiest solution. Wood chips on top of a cardboard base is effective, but only for small areas. Moving loads and loads of wood chips by wheelbarrow on an annual basis is much more tiring than weeding. Now, if you have a front loader it could work, otherwise forget it.
I use the compressed pine shavings I get at the Tractor Supply. They are wood shavings that are compressed into bales and wrapped. I carry a bale out, open up the top, and uncompressed and distribute it where I want. They aren't heavy, and not mulch either (no big chunks) so whatever spills gets mixed into the dirt anyway. Its pretty inexpensive, like $5 for 8 cubic feet. Use in beds, to mulch, in potato towers and beds(straw is not easy to get for me, and more expensive) and more.
I use old linolium to line the paths, it's FREE, easy to cut and fit, and your local installer will thank you for taking it off his hands as he will not have to dispose of it. Your welcome.
Instead of using playground rubber you can use plain old cardboard - cheap and easy to find. It will stop the weeds, you can walk on it when its wet, and it will eventually degrade into the ground. If you have a lot of wind, you can hold it down with those wire ground staple things.
This is Exactly the issue we are figuring out around our raised wicking garden beds! I read ALOT of seemingly good things about THICK layers of wood mulch. Plenty of big organic farms use the extremely low maintenance wood chips between all their grow beds too! The benefits of to your immediate soil from the wood compost is immense by the looks of it! I'll be trying that soon.....
Hi Mark! My name is Tony and I live in Texas. Getting rid of the weeds is easy and inexpensive. Follow this recipe : 1gallon of vinegar that You use for cooking (5 %) 2 cups of Epsom salt 1 cup of dishwashing soap Mix well and You are ready to spray the weeds. Good luck!
I live in Florida. There are plenty of weeds here. The best I've ever found is two to three inches of hay every year. it keeps the moisture in, it keeps the weeds out and as it decomposes it adds fertilizer. the worms love it so it keeps the soil loose and fluffy. I use it all the way up to the plants and all the way out in to the path. occasionally the hay seeds will grow but they are easy to pull out. I hear straw is better but we don't get that here in Florida, only hay. it is a technique I have used for years. I call it lazy gardening because it keeps the weeds down so well.
Marty Guris, I tried that and the fire ants just loved it. They're fearsome up here in the Florida panhandle. Maybe if I mulched heavily around the outer edges of my fenced-in garden? That would stop the dadgum Coastal Bahia from encroaching as easily but wouldn't hide the ants right next to the raised beds.
I live near Houston, Texas and the fire ants are a real problem for me here. I have a decent sized backyard, but I only want to plant using containers because the only thing that kills the fire ants is Orthene and it says you are not supposed to use it except around ornamental plants because it will cause the poison to get into the plants rendering them dangerous to eat. I hate these fire ants! The darn things also seem to love to build mounds near the wood of a raised bed so I have not tried them because of that. I wish I could get rid of them but they are everywhere. If I poison a mound another will pop up somewhere else in the yard within a week or two so for now, in the battlefield of my yard, the ants are winning.
I lay cardboard collected from supermarkets on the pathway between my raised garden beds and have been doing for almost 3 years now. Weeds do pop up by the side of the beds but its easy to pull it out because the soil underneath is soft.
Hi Mark, I just found your channel, and think it's great! I'm going to do something similar as grass, once I buy some farmland. However, I'll put down a heavy amount of white clover seed instead. Clover not only grows around 6" tall, making it unnecessary to mow, but it is also a nitrogen fixer, can drown out weeds, and is an awesome bee flower. BTW, your garden looks super!
After all that hard work finally paid off, it look so nice and tidy I use cardboards my vegie area is small but when it rains too heavy it floods I have land slide from neighbours I am the most flooded house around
Price out roll roofing. It's like asphalt shingles, on a roll. We used it successfully under my child's playground for about 8 years. I was super pleased. You do need to flatten the ground underneath and remove any big clumps of weeds like crab grass hillocks when installing. (It will confirm to larger slopes just fine but might tear initially on a high small clump. ). The price here has unfortunately gone up along with roofing. Check roofing supply companies for damaged rolls. Or damaged bundles of shingles to layer in pathways.
The cheapest way to solve this problem is to mix a dry mix of crusher dust and cement to about 5 cm thick and mist until wet. It also stops snails and slugs in our subtropical gardens, FYI I live at Birkdale Brisbane.
Thanks, you’ve done all the hard work for me. Just moved into my granny flat close to daughter and son in law on 188 acres between Gympie and Maryborough. So on your advice I bought 2 birdies raised gardens from Bunnings. Easy peasy . Even put them together myself (Im a grandma) by hand , one screw at a time with the little thing they give you to tighten them. Well 3 hours later and arthritic hands very sore I realised I’d put the wrong pieces in the wrong place. Well along came son in law and the rest is history. Looking forward to following all your advice and start planting. I just need to tell my grandchildren. “Let’s get into it!”
I have a small garden in Singapore. The lawn is moved by the Condo gardeners. For weeds that grow between the plants, I am putting freshly discarded vegetables from the market (all free) and they smother the weeds, decompose become humus. I keep adding the veggies...makes great soil compost anyway. I noticed it takes time for the weeds to grow back..perhaps the compost has killed the weeds and seeds for a until the birds and wind brings them back again. Anyway, more fresh veggies solve the problem again.
Very nice! Rarely do you hit a homer the first time, but my Dad actually did. He said, "Forget the breathable surface underneath, I'll use heavy, plastic drop cloth". It worked. He covered it with non-sandy rock, almost a marble type rock. It cost him, but he didn't have to redo. Most people make the mistake of putting down rock that's too sandy, a layer of dirt builds up atop the plastic, and you get a sort of nut grass that grows; drives you crazy (nuts)! I wouldn't have thought of the rubber mats! GREAT idea which I will use this coming Spring!
Hi Mark, I get great results by covering my weedy banks with gold moss (sedum acre, golden carpet stone-crop). Weeds cannot grow through this stuff and its really hardy. I propagate 100 small pots at a time then plant them out when grown. It doesn't need much topsoil and it's really drought tolerant. It looks great too. The only draw back is that you cant walk on it. It's great for preventing weeds on no-walk areas. Thanks for all your great videos, I love and learn from them. Keep up the good work. Pete from the FNQ tropics.
Ohh I feel so smart! As soon as I saw the weeds I thought so then drainage is fixed go back to grass! lol I have a similar issue but I adamantly want the gravel. I laid paths of 4-6 inches of old shingles and then 3-4 inches fine gravel but when I had the bright idea to solidify it with granite fines/powder the paths grew every imaginable thing and so firmly entrenched they could hardly be pulled! I am gradually sifting out the fines and it is improving. Love your videos!
An older relative and I were talking about gardening. I'm a newbie and she's a pro. She told me she put down old carpet on her garden paths to keep the weeds away and that it's been working for years (fluffy side down, she said. lol). I had torn out the carpet in our living room and, thankfully, hadn't hauled it to the dump so I'm trying it out as a weed barrier. Hopefully it works as well for me as it does her. :)
I just use commercial grade landscape fabric. Relatively cheap as well at about $30US a roll. I've had it in my bucket garden for about 2 years now and still holding up fine.
The same growing conditions and soils that are ideal for many of our garden plants are also ideal for weeds. Some of the nuisance weeds that are small and shrub-like outside our garden areas can grow to the size of small trees within the garden.
Self Sufficient Me thanks for sharing your ideas. You sure raise wonderful gardens. *One of our big weed problems here are the thistles, primarily Canada thistle. Even tried eating them, but once the root system is established an army couldn't eat enough to make a dent. Lawdy!
Learn from you and it is interesting.... I just use vinegar and I dont want grass,, it is too much work for and old lady, and I dont have a ride on...... So I just go out with my vinegard and spray..... but yours suits your surrounds :)
I stopped mowing near my garden because of the mower throwing cut grass, and weed seed everywhere including in raised beds. (I also have rock paths, and some areas mulched for my son's playgound area) The further you can keep the lawn from the garden, the less problems with weeds you have.
Love your honesty, I am still trying to work what to do with half of my garden, as in what sort of raised gardens (yes I have watched your video 🤣) cost, irrigation etc. . Your place is AWESOME and you have inspired me!!! You’ve lit a fire that I thought had been dampened!! Thank you.... I just wish you were in Melbourne, Victoria!!! Regardless you have given/supplied many great tips!!!! 😍
Thank you so much for showing your process! I have been going back and forth on what to do, as I wanted something that I could be barefoot but low maintenance. I almost did pea gravel but was worried about the weed issue and appreciated hearing the issue that you had! I also have the same issue with some areas not being able to fit the mower! 💕 I really appreciated this video, so thank you!
Hey Mark, I love your warts and all approach. Sadly, I have stopped watching Gardening Aust because I learn nothing new and they don't provide practical solutions like they used to when Peter Cundall was presenter. Keep up the great vids.
Hey Chris, I loved Peter's vegetable growing content also! Jerry's good too, but I understand what you're saying about TV gardening shows... I think they've become a little sterile, to be honest, and we gardeners know full well that gardening is a dirty game lol. Cheers :)
Hey Mark, love your videos!! They are very helpful and inspiring! For this year I'm wedding out all weeds by hand before flowing and leaving some plants of each species of veggies to flower with the hope that next season it will be more difficult for weeds to grow due to lack of space ☺️. Basically replace weeds with veggies
Hello Mark, Thanks Mark you gave me a lot of good information in this video. I'm in Arkansas USA and if you don't know weeds and grass grow like trees here. I'm getting handicapped so I've been thinking in your line of gardening, so now I've got a plan. I will try your weed free pathway when we transform our acre garden into raised beds. Thanks for your help. Jessie from Arkansas USA
I bought one of those mighty mite tillers and it ran when I first got it but has not run since. it's been sitting in my shop for years ever since. $200 wasted. And on low Soc Sec that's a lot of money. I do all my tilling by hand. The expensive Pony Tiller (Troy Built) I got many years ago that took me years to pay off, won't start either after the first few years. Gave up on tillers. I do all my tilling by hand and I'm a gal of 73.
Fine for those who have ride-on mowers and like monoculture. I don't. I use thick beds of woodchip - which DOES work. I renew the woodchip every 2 years or so, and hand pull the few tiny weedlets that appear. The woodchip gives excellent drainage, also encourages worms, which pull down the slowly degrading wood, and they aerate the soil to make drainage even better. Plus they fertilise the soil. The woodchip also keeps the soil cool in summer, promoting good root growth and there are interesting fungi - some edible - everywhere. I have no idea why you came to the conclusion that woodchip wouldn't work earlier on, and the time, trouble and expense you went to in order to achieve an acceptable solution is mind boggling.
Pretty much what I had planned. For me, I will be doing a sort of mix between row gardening and beds. Not bothering with raised beds (yet?). New fresh garden on ground that has been lawn for decades. Going to mark everything out so that the path width is just a touch more than a push mower and plan to just mow it when I mow the remaining lawn and weed trimmer the edges as needed. I would rather have a way of not having to fool with mowing the paths, but the options aren't that great and the good options aren't cheap. If I had a lot of money to throw around I'd just hire someone to remove my entire lawn, put in raised beds, and concrete slab all the pathways (with drainage, of course).
Alpine gardeners use gravel to top-dress their seed pots...because it holds I'm just the right amount of moisture and creates the ideal microclimate for germinating seeds. ;-)
We paved all the area around our garden beds and I must say, I love it! It is the easiest and cheapest way to go. Yes we do get weeds grow thru the cracks here and there, but every spring I make mess in my garden, I clean up and wash the walkways with pressure washer, and it keeps them away!
This was really helpful, we have almost finished our growing area and have been wondering what we should put down to reduce the time weeding etc. Thank you!
Thank you I liked this..cause Barefooted gardening is my standard..that the gravel was necessary..is due to your soil and drainage type..as could be as well in my next ,,unknown garden space.!
Very true - we often quickly visit the garden in bare feet to grab something and it's nice to have soft grass underfoot. I'm glad you liked this video as I said in the vid - this weed-free no bog pathway fix is one of our best achievements in our garden. Cheers :)
I've been thinking how to turn my backyard into a garden and kept thinking of the pathway problem. Like you I looked at many ways but all of them are prohibitively expensive for no guarantee. I guess my original plan to have a gap just bigger then a mower on either side will suffice :P
I don't even have a garden. But my gf and I watch these videos every night. His jokes are so bad that they're good lol. (Also very informative, and I hope to have a garden someday )
Hi Marc, do you have a slug problem, too in Australia? Here in Germany/Europe the problem is huge and if we don't look after our plants carefully, everything will be eaten by the slugs. They really suck. Cheers, Florian.
Hi Florian, yes we have slugs but not a very big problem. Sometimes they get in lettuce or cabbages, however, the damage is often minimal because the numbers are low. Some places in Oz do have bigger slug/snail problems than us here and I think the reason why our slug numbers are low is due to a lot of birds that visit our garden particularly the kind of birds that eat insects etc - I see them sifting through the mulch in the garden beds looking for worms and slugs so it's a good relationship. I saw your latest video ua-cam.com/video/hkwoL6VwU8k/v-deo.html it was very entertaining! All the best :)
We use our spent coffee grounds around our plants for slug control. I also hear that they can be controlled with epsom salt. Good Luck! (Maryland USA) LOVE your videos!
Sorry to be negative Nancy I have read and seen several articles on carcinogenic properties of tiers I use to have few beds made out of them , surprising that matting is made out of them and used in kids play grounds I know wear I wont be taking my kid's any time soon. As far as wood chips go for paths in heavy clay conditions they work great ! helps with the movement and aeration of compaction layers and movement of water off site or held on site if the water table is low all round best option. talking from experience had real boggy spot covered with free chips from an arborist problem solved no issues all winter/spring. Will end on positive tho it looks really nice great set up !
Have to be careful where the grass gets thrown by the mower. I have neighbor whose walking mower throws grass in my beds. I couldnt use them for 2 years. Im gonna try the 2ft raised metal beds. That should stop it Im hoping.
Good borders and mulch in the beds. Without mulch (bare dirt), nature will bring in seeds. Without some physical border (raised beds offer a border), grass will creep in too. Unless you like to run a trimmer down the edges practically every few days all summer, a good border is a must.
Very interesting, Mark, but I"m unclear on one thing. I saw that you moved the large rocks to the front bed. Did you move all the gravel, too, or did you just leave it in place and cover it up? Thanks for showing how the garden looked at the various stages. A picture is worth a thousand words. ~ Lisa
If you were starting from scratch...blank canvas...would you recommend just placing raised vege garden beds wide enough to drive a ride on through...? That way using existing grass.
You're channel is so refereshing to the soul. Unpretentious, priceless, timeless advice and very entertaining. Thank you for sharing.
*Unpretentious* - that's the word. Mark's three acres are UA-cam's Garden of Eden, and, even better with Mark and his faithful dog instead of Adam & Eve.
Yes I watch because of those qualities, they are well edited and friendly.
And thank you for watching/supporting my channel. One of the main aims in many of my videos is to show people if "I" can do it than most people can because I'm certainly no genius! That's obvious, hahaha... Gardening or self-sufficiency no matter what scale is a fun and addictive activity to do. Cheers :)
Ha ha ha...Usually people show only successes, rarely mistakes... Good job, Mark!
I thought the thumbnail said Free Weed!
6:33 The mighty thud of your jump scared the shadows back a couple feet!
I watched it a couple times just to see the neat editing trick and didn't notice. Good eyes!
This video convinced me to just run the mower around my beds
Great video Mark, keeping paths weed free can be a real pain. We always mulched ours, carpet or thick cardboard with woodchips on top works well.
Kaye Schlenert I mulched mine with cardboard & wood chips & the Bermuda grass ate it up. I think I have mutant Bermuda grass. It's worse than fire. It'll even hop an 8' concrete pad. Sends out runners and they dig in deep. It's triing to consume.my day lilies and aiming for my comfrey patch but I'm going to win.
bermuda is a great grass for livestock. unfortunately, for the same reason it's great for them is why it completely sucks for a gardener. I am dealing with it myself.
I do the same, eventually the cardboard has almost disappeared and I’m wondering if I could score a good price on Old used roofing shingles and then mulch over them. I haven’t thought it all the way through yet though, just a thought.
Garden looks great! I like to use my grass clippings to keep my paths free from weeds works great and absorbs excess water.
An annual sprinkling of FRESH wood chips works well controlling pathway weeds. It does so both as a weed block AND by depleting soil nitrogen in the immediate pathway area. This assumes of course, a garden area not at risk for excess water runoff. Where a pathway is next to lawn, it requires a rhizome barrier (either air gap ditch or material barrier).
I help run a 1/2 acre community garden in Florida, and we struggled for years with this problem. In the end we finally arrived at the same same solution- just grow grass and mow it regularly. The grass was doing its best to return on its own anyway. So we learned a valuable lesson to let nature be your guide. Definitely the easiest solution. Wood chips on top of a cardboard base is effective, but only for small areas. Moving loads and loads of wood chips by wheelbarrow on an annual basis is much more tiring than weeding. Now, if you have a front loader it could work, otherwise forget it.
I use the compressed pine shavings I get at the Tractor Supply. They are wood shavings that are compressed into bales and wrapped. I carry a bale out, open up the top, and uncompressed and distribute it where I want. They aren't heavy, and not mulch either (no big chunks) so whatever spills gets mixed into the dirt anyway.
Its pretty inexpensive, like $5 for 8 cubic feet.
Use in beds, to mulch, in potato towers and beds(straw is not easy to get for me, and more expensive) and more.
I use old linolium to line the paths, it's FREE, easy to cut and fit, and your local installer will thank you for taking it off his hands as he will not have to dispose of it. Your welcome.
Wont that leach chems into the garden?
Hi @michael holmes , I'm going to go around tomorrow and try to find some! Thanks so much 😊
This is really a labor of love. Forking,aeration is good if soil is hardened by walking or unused for a while
Instead of using playground rubber you can use plain old cardboard - cheap and easy to find. It will stop the weeds, you can walk on it when its wet, and it will eventually degrade into the ground. If you have a lot of wind, you can hold it down with those wire ground staple things.
Love your channel mate, one of my favourite go-to places when this crazy world depresses me.
This is Exactly the issue we are figuring out around our raised wicking garden beds! I read ALOT of seemingly good things about THICK layers of wood mulch. Plenty of big organic farms use the extremely low maintenance wood chips between all their grow beds too! The benefits of to your immediate soil from the wood compost is immense by the looks of it! I'll be trying that soon.....
Mother Nature sees a bare patch of ground: “Mind if I step in here?”
This makes me feel so much better, I am struggling with a similar issue and seeing the video of your garden overgrown makes me feel better about mine!
Mark, your channel is my number one gardening learning channel. Thanks for all your wonderful knowledge.
Hi Mark!
My name is Tony and I live in Texas. Getting rid of the weeds is easy and inexpensive.
Follow this recipe :
1gallon of vinegar that You use for cooking (5 %)
2 cups of Epsom salt
1 cup of dishwashing soap
Mix well and You are ready to spray the weeds.
Good luck!
I live in Florida. There are plenty of weeds here. The best I've ever found is two to three inches of hay every year. it keeps the moisture in, it keeps the weeds out and as it decomposes it adds fertilizer. the worms love it so it keeps the soil loose and fluffy. I use it all the way up to the plants and all the way out in to the path. occasionally the hay seeds will grow but they are easy to pull out. I hear straw is better but we don't get that here in Florida, only hay. it is a technique I have used for years. I call it lazy gardening because it keeps the weeds down so well.
Marty Guris, I tried that and the fire ants just loved it. They're fearsome up here in the Florida panhandle. Maybe if I mulched heavily around the outer edges of my fenced-in garden? That would stop the dadgum Coastal Bahia from encroaching as easily but wouldn't hide the ants right next to the raised beds.
I live near Houston, Texas and the fire ants are a real problem for me here. I have a decent sized backyard, but I only want to plant using containers because the only thing that kills the fire ants is Orthene and it says you are not supposed to use it except around ornamental plants because it will cause the poison to get into the plants rendering them dangerous to eat. I hate these fire ants! The darn things also seem to love to build mounds near the wood of a raised bed so I have not tried them because of that. I wish I could get rid of them but they are everywhere. If I poison a mound another will pop up somewhere else in the yard within a week or two so for now, in the battlefield of my yard, the ants are winning.
I lay cardboard collected from supermarkets on the pathway between my raised garden beds and have been doing for almost 3 years now. Weeds do pop up by the side of the beds but its easy to pull it out because the soil underneath is soft.
Hi Mark, I just found your channel, and think it's great! I'm going to do something similar as grass, once I buy some farmland. However, I'll put down a heavy amount of white clover seed instead. Clover not only grows around 6" tall, making it unnecessary to mow, but it is also a nitrogen fixer, can drown out weeds, and is an awesome bee flower. BTW, your garden looks super!
And it's edible!!
After all that hard work finally paid off, it look so nice and tidy I use cardboards my vegie area is small but when it rains too heavy it floods I have land slide from neighbours I am the most flooded house around
Price out roll roofing. It's like asphalt shingles, on a roll. We used it successfully under my child's playground for about 8 years. I was super pleased. You do need to flatten the ground underneath and remove any big clumps of weeds like crab grass hillocks when installing. (It will confirm to larger slopes just fine but might tear initially on a high small clump. ). The price here has unfortunately gone up along with roofing. Check roofing supply companies for damaged rolls. Or damaged bundles of shingles to layer in pathways.
The cheapest way to solve this problem is to mix a dry mix of crusher dust and cement to about 5 cm thick and mist until wet. It also stops snails and slugs in our subtropical gardens, FYI I live at Birkdale Brisbane.
Love every video you release
Thanks, you’ve done all the hard work for me. Just moved into my granny flat close to daughter and son in law on 188 acres between Gympie and Maryborough. So on your advice I bought 2 birdies raised gardens from Bunnings. Easy peasy . Even put them together myself (Im a grandma) by hand , one screw at a time with the little thing they give you to tighten them. Well 3 hours later and arthritic hands very sore I realised I’d put the wrong pieces in the wrong place. Well along came son in law and the rest is history. Looking forward to following all your advice and start planting. I just need to tell my grandchildren. “Let’s get into it!”
I have a small garden in Singapore. The lawn is moved by the Condo gardeners. For weeds that grow between the plants, I am putting freshly discarded vegetables from the market (all free) and they smother the weeds, decompose become humus. I keep adding the veggies...makes great soil compost anyway. I noticed it takes time for the weeds to grow back..perhaps the compost has killed the weeds and seeds for a until the birds and wind brings them back again. Anyway, more fresh veggies solve the problem again.
If you drink tea simply add the teabags to your compost. It's very beneficial for your mulch and plants.
I love it. Thats what I did. Made the distance between beds mower width. So easy to care for.
Very nice! Rarely do you hit a homer the first time, but my Dad actually did. He said, "Forget the breathable surface underneath, I'll use heavy, plastic drop cloth". It worked. He covered it with non-sandy rock, almost a marble type rock. It cost him, but he didn't have to redo. Most people make the mistake of putting down rock that's too sandy, a layer of dirt builds up atop the plastic, and you get a sort of nut grass that grows; drives you crazy (nuts)! I wouldn't have thought of the rubber mats! GREAT idea which I will use this coming Spring!
Hi Mark, I get great results by covering my weedy banks with gold moss (sedum acre, golden carpet stone-crop). Weeds cannot grow through this stuff and its really hardy. I propagate 100 small pots at a time then plant them out when grown. It doesn't need much topsoil and it's really drought tolerant. It looks great too. The only draw back is that you cant walk on it. It's great for preventing weeds on no-walk areas.
Thanks for all your great videos, I love and learn from them. Keep up the good work.
Pete from the FNQ tropics.
Ohh I feel so smart! As soon as I saw the weeds I thought so then drainage is fixed go back to grass! lol I have a similar issue but I adamantly want the gravel. I laid paths of 4-6 inches of old shingles and then 3-4 inches fine gravel but when I had the bright idea to solidify it with granite fines/powder the paths grew every imaginable thing and so firmly entrenched they could hardly be pulled! I am gradually sifting out the fines and it is improving. Love your videos!
I don't even have a garden, but I love your videos!
Thank you very much! :)
Glad to see the ol' Blundstones, my new favorite gardening boots
Here in minnesota we have a very limited growing season but your videos have inspired me to let my garden grow.
I'm glad my videos have inspired you in the garden Greg thanks for letting me know! :)
Useful to know that grass is good to have as a path.
I use the LPG big burner hooked to a bbq bottle here in Perth.
That must be fun
Yep that has made my mind up! Thank you. I have the exact same issues and racking my brain as to what to do
Nice Garden. Fr dude. Nice work. You are brilliant and a big thanks on the help!
An older relative and I were talking about gardening. I'm a newbie and she's a pro. She told me she put down old carpet on her garden paths to keep the weeds away and that it's been working for years (fluffy side down, she said. lol). I had torn out the carpet in our living room and, thankfully, hadn't hauled it to the dump so I'm trying it out as a weed barrier. Hopefully it works as well for me as it does her. :)
I just use commercial grade landscape fabric. Relatively cheap as well at about $30US a roll. I've had it in my bucket garden for about 2 years now and still holding up fine.
The same growing conditions and soils that are ideal for many of our garden plants are also ideal for weeds. Some of the nuisance weeds that are small and shrub-like outside our garden areas can grow to the size of small trees within the garden.
Very true - and they grow fast too! If only some of our vegetables grew that fast... :)
Self Sufficient Me thanks for sharing your ideas. You sure raise wonderful gardens. *One of our big weed problems here are the thistles, primarily Canada thistle. Even tried eating them, but once the root system is established an army couldn't eat enough to make a dent. Lawdy!
Learn from you and it is interesting.... I just use vinegar and I dont want grass,, it is too much work for and old lady, and I dont have a ride on...... So I just go out with my vinegard and spray..... but yours suits your surrounds :)
Vinegar is such a useful product! Thank you! :)
Who knew? I have plenty of vinegar too 😁
I stopped mowing near my garden because of the mower throwing cut grass, and weed seed everywhere including in raised beds. (I also have rock paths, and some areas mulched for my son's playgound area) The further you can keep the lawn from the garden, the less problems with weeds you have.
Great idea! Drainage layer underneath grass. Awesome!
Love your honesty, I am still trying to work what to do with half of my garden, as in what sort of raised gardens (yes I have watched your video 🤣) cost, irrigation etc. . Your place is AWESOME and you have inspired me!!! You’ve lit a fire that I thought had been dampened!! Thank you.... I just wish you were in Melbourne, Victoria!!! Regardless you have given/supplied many great tips!!!! 😍
Thank you so much for showing your process! I have been going back and forth on what to do, as I wanted something that I could be barefoot but low maintenance. I almost did pea gravel but was worried about the weed issue and appreciated hearing the issue that you had! I also have the same issue with some areas not being able to fit the mower! 💕 I really appreciated this video, so thank you!
Great idea with the green grasslike carpet🤣🤣🤣👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽🤣 Beautiful garden!
Your place looks GREAT!
Hey Mark, I love your warts and all approach. Sadly, I have stopped watching Gardening Aust because I learn nothing new and they don't provide practical solutions like they used to when Peter Cundall was presenter. Keep up the great vids.
Hey Chris, I loved Peter's vegetable growing content also! Jerry's good too, but I understand what you're saying about TV gardening shows... I think they've become a little sterile, to be honest, and we gardeners know full well that gardening is a dirty game lol. Cheers :)
I put down plastic tarps first then woodchips no weeds very cheap to set-up and great gardens
Hey Mark, love your videos!! They are very helpful and inspiring! For this year I'm wedding out all weeds by hand before flowing and leaving some plants of each species of veggies to flower with the hope that next season it will be more difficult for weeds to grow due to lack of space ☺️. Basically replace weeds with veggies
thick crushed limestone and old fashioned concrete slabs with a bit of pea gravel on the top if I'm feeling fancy
Hello Mark, Thanks Mark you gave me a lot of good information in this video. I'm in Arkansas USA and if you don't know weeds and grass grow like trees here. I'm getting handicapped so I've been thinking in your line of gardening, so now I've got a plan. I will try your weed free pathway when we transform our acre garden into raised beds. Thanks for your help. Jessie from Arkansas USA
I really like the way it turned out! Looking for options in a tiny veggie garden. I hope my kale looks as great as yours! Thanks for sharing
Awesome Vid. Love the time progression. This just saved me years of mistakes
I bought one of those mighty mite tillers and it ran when I first got it but has not run since. it's been sitting in my shop for years ever since. $200 wasted. And on low Soc Sec that's a lot of money. I do all my tilling by hand. The expensive Pony Tiller (Troy Built) I got many years ago that took me years to pay off, won't start either after the first few years. Gave up on tillers. I do all my tilling by hand and I'm a gal of 73.
One of the most interesting, most inspiring videos I've ever seen. Congrats on being great!
I love your videos. Started planting this year. Thank you
Fine for those who have ride-on mowers and like monoculture. I don't. I use thick beds of woodchip - which DOES work. I renew the woodchip every 2 years or so, and hand pull the few tiny weedlets that appear. The woodchip gives excellent drainage, also encourages worms, which pull down the slowly degrading wood, and they aerate the soil to make drainage even better. Plus they fertilise the soil. The woodchip also keeps the soil cool in summer, promoting good root growth and there are interesting fungi - some edible - everywhere. I have no idea why you came to the conclusion that woodchip wouldn't work earlier on, and the time, trouble and expense you went to in order to achieve an acceptable solution is mind boggling.
Pretty much what I had planned. For me, I will be doing a sort of mix between row gardening and beds. Not bothering with raised beds (yet?). New fresh garden on ground that has been lawn for decades. Going to mark everything out so that the path width is just a touch more than a push mower and plan to just mow it when I mow the remaining lawn and weed trimmer the edges as needed. I would rather have a way of not having to fool with mowing the paths, but the options aren't that great and the good options aren't cheap. If I had a lot of money to throw around I'd just hire someone to remove my entire lawn, put in raised beds, and concrete slab all the pathways (with drainage, of course).
Alpine gardeners use gravel to top-dress their seed pots...because it holds I'm just the right amount of moisture and creates the ideal microclimate for germinating seeds. ;-)
Looks great my new friend. I built greenhouses to get rid of the weed problem.
Cheers
Chuck
Big thumbs up Mark. I enjoyed the story behind this one. Thank you very much for sharing
We paved all the area around our garden beds and I must say, I love it! It is the easiest and cheapest way to go. Yes we do get weeds grow thru the cracks here and there, but every spring I make mess in my garden, I clean up and wash the walkways with pressure washer, and it keeps them away!
Thanks bro you just stopped me from making a massive mistake x
Used conveyor belt should work. My brother used to work at Worsely Alumina.
You could use roofing shingles as well. It's cheaper.
That's a good idea! Thanks :)
Great channel, but I want say how funny it is you made the end look like a light night commercial.
This was really helpful, we have almost finished our growing area and have been wondering what we should put down to reduce the time weeding etc. Thank you!
Thank you I liked this..cause Barefooted gardening is my standard..that the gravel was necessary..is due to your soil and drainage type..as could be as well in my next ,,unknown garden space.!
Very true - we often quickly visit the garden in bare feet to grab something and it's nice to have soft grass underfoot. I'm glad you liked this video as I said in the vid - this weed-free no bog pathway fix is one of our best achievements in our garden. Cheers :)
I've been thinking how to turn my backyard into a garden and kept thinking of the pathway problem. Like you I looked at many ways but all of them are prohibitively expensive for no guarantee. I guess my original plan to have a gap just bigger then a mower on either side will suffice :P
sir you are doing wht i am dreaming
Your pathways look better than mine
What a great climate. Even bare gravel begins to thrive in a year.
Plants are amazing and powerful..... thank goodness.
I thought it said Free Weed. But I finished watching anyway. Cool dude.
I don't even have a garden. But my gf and I watch these videos every night. His jokes are so bad that they're good lol. (Also very informative, and I hope to have a garden someday )
Thanks mate! It took us many years to finally get a property and grow our own food so keep working towards your goals and all the best :)
You can grow a little something almost anywhere...
💚
Hi Marc, do you have a slug problem, too in Australia? Here in Germany/Europe the problem is huge and if we don't look after our plants carefully, everything will be eaten by the slugs. They really suck. Cheers, Florian.
Hi Florian, yes we have slugs but not a very big problem. Sometimes they get in lettuce or cabbages, however, the damage is often minimal because the numbers are low. Some places in Oz do have bigger slug/snail problems than us here and I think the reason why our slug numbers are low is due to a lot of birds that visit our garden particularly the kind of birds that eat insects etc - I see them sifting through the mulch in the garden beds looking for worms and slugs so it's a good relationship. I saw your latest video ua-cam.com/video/hkwoL6VwU8k/v-deo.html it was very entertaining! All the best :)
We use our spent coffee grounds around our plants for slug control. I also hear that they can be controlled with epsom salt. Good Luck! (Maryland USA) LOVE your videos!
For this issue in thinking of introducing a small number of ducks, do you think it might work? Greetings from Cyprus
@@Palios33 Ducks are just perfekt for slugs!
Australia has many different lizards, skinks etc as well as a vast array of birds that all love to eat slugs and snails
No matter what one does I too have learned that nature is better manmade is too much work.
Thank you so much for sharing this! You have reassured me with our grassy options!
+Rhiannon Rabbit ok great! Yes, try the grass option first at least. Best of luck :)
Sorry to be negative Nancy I have read and seen several articles on carcinogenic properties of tiers I use to have few beds made out of them , surprising that matting is made out of them and used in kids play grounds I know wear I wont be taking my kid's any time soon.
As far as wood chips go for paths in heavy clay conditions they work great ! helps with the movement and aeration of compaction layers and movement of water off site or held on site if the water table is low all round best option. talking from experience had real boggy spot covered with free chips from an arborist problem solved no issues all winter/spring.
Will end on positive tho it looks really nice great set up !
Paint the rubber white be cooler on a hot day on feet
Could have used a weed burner propane flamethrower on the gravel.
I READ THAT THUMB NAIL BACKWARDS AND I DON'T EVEN SMOKE
Thanks for your video - you just stopped me making the same mistake.
so grass is best
I solved the problem by putting mine far enough apart so I could mow it!
Have to be careful where the grass gets thrown by the mower. I have neighbor whose walking mower throws grass in my beds. I couldnt use them for 2 years. Im gonna try the 2ft raised metal beds. That should stop it Im hoping.
Depends on the type of weed. All gardens should have the smoke-able type in it
LOL. Good vid mate.
This is pretty much what we had in mind! 👍😊
how do you keep your grass out of your bed my grass is growing into them relentlessly
Good borders and mulch in the beds. Without mulch (bare dirt), nature will bring in seeds. Without some physical border (raised beds offer a border), grass will creep in too. Unless you like to run a trimmer down the edges practically every few days all summer, a good border is a must.
Cover the rubber mat with artificial turf. Looks and feels like grass, with no mowing needed..
I came here for the free weed!
DUDE😂😂😂 I read the title but I have dyslexia,free weed
Awesome vibs brother, blessings to you and yours and yeah man great idea from my pov
Love the dad jokes “stunt double feet” 😂
Very interesting, Mark, but I"m unclear on one thing. I saw that you moved the large rocks to the front bed. Did you move all the gravel, too, or did you just leave it in place and cover it up?
Thanks for showing how the garden looked at the various stages. A picture is worth a thousand words. ~ Lisa
He said he placed a layer of sand over the gravel.
1million!!!!! So good!!
i did this but with broken down woodchips only so the grass that was already there could overtake the weeds
If you were starting from scratch...blank canvas...would you recommend just placing raised vege garden beds wide enough to drive a ride on through...? That way using existing grass.
Thanks Mark. I’ve learned so much from you & saved a lot of time because I’m sure I would have made the same mistakes.
WOW, that's so smart! You can get them cheaper here at Lowe's Home Improvement if you get them on sale, which they do alot. 💞💞💞