Controlling Weeds Without Chemicals: Five Different Techniques

Comparing five different ways that we have controlled weeds in our garden with mechanical barriers, without chemicals--including the pros and cons of roofing paper, builder's paper, cardboard, black tarps, and wood chip mulch, as well as a short note on cover crops.
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[@ericbridges9]

Awsome setup Thank you

[@WellGroundedGardens]

I’m glad it was helpful!

[@Angie-ci1lp]

Thank you for sharing

[@WellGroundedGardens]

Glad it was helpful!

[@urantiawisdom]

Hi again. I appreciate the detail in your videos! I put 1.5 feet of soil in a raised bed (insulated around the insides with 1.5" blue styrofoam insulation) and the quack grass surrounding the bed still came up through the bottom. The bed is about 6'x3'. Just sayin'. Thanks for the tip about builder's paper, as my best source for cardboard has dried up. Your garden looks great!

[@WellGroundedGardens]

Thanks! Quack grass is the WORST. Solid black plastic tarps got rid of ours, for now, but I can still feel its sinister intentions, lurking outside the garden “moat.”

[@nicohelpdesk435]

Thank you for this amazing explanations for your setup. Very very insightful. One question that popped is how much did the whole thing cost (with the wood, fences, ...) and how much work was put into it? Sound that once installed, you're good to go for a quite long time too. Very nice.

[@WellGroundedGardens]

I’m literally about to do a video about the setup and how I should’ve scaled it more slowly. It was a LOT to do the first year. I haven’t added up the total and broken it out from the rest of the house build-I’ll have to do that, next!

[@nicohelpdesk435]

@@WellGroundedGardens 🙏

[@Ms.Byrd68]

@@WellGroundedGardens Do you ever use the 'Woven Landscape Plastic'?

[@trumpetingangel]

Your beds are beautiful! Always glad to meet another wood chip devotee. However, I don't want plastic or asphalt in the garden, even in the walkways. (Microplastics! Asphalt! Eww for food growing). I'd rather have weeds. These products do break down over time, including the black plastic, albeit slowly. Also, I want the water to sink in, not pool on the paths. I'm happy with cardboard and plenty of wood chips for pathways. I add some more and top them off each year (sometimes during the summer). When they've broken down, the soil beneath is just gorgeous! Sadly, as a single woman, now 70, moving wood chips is serious work, and I can't do as much as I used to. I did buy some nursery-grade woven weed cover to solarize a new bed. It's a 12-year product, and I don't anticipate using it that often. I'm hoping it doesn't break down before it kills the grass.

[@WellGroundedGardens]

Wood chip shoveling is definitely no joke!

[@Ken-th5hg]

I have had great success using billboard material in leu of black plastic. Check with local sign companies. I got several 10' x 40' sections, for free.

[@WellGroundedGardens]

Ooh!!!! I will check that out as a resource

[@brentholaway9114]

Do you have a video on building your "moat"?

[@WellGroundedGardens]

We didn’t build that part, ourselves-we knew that it was beyond our capabilities (or at least mental bandwidth this year) and hired it out. The design was dictated by local zoning codes; I touched on it a bit in this (longer) video, at the 18:30 mark: kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6Tdk6pniLdgiMk

[@bethsanchezyoga55]

Thank you for this! Curious- does the black plastic also kill microbes and fungi in the soil?

[@WellGroundedGardens]

In theory if you got it hot enough, you could kill everything (like when people solarize a soil area with clear plastic). In my own black silage tarp experience, I usually find tons of earthworms right at the surface as I remove it, and if they’re happy, I assume that the smaller critters are, as well.

[@bethsanchezyoga55]

thank you! I appeciate the response.

[@WellGroundedGardens]

@bethsanchezyoga55 any time!

[@rachelbare7722]

I used to do cardboard until the termites came lol. Its really the easist way and I miss it

[@WellGroundedGardens]

So glad I don’t have those, here 😕 The one good thing about super cold winters

[@margaretlockwood9382]

I am concerned as I watched a Regenerative Gardening KZbin video and she cautioned against using paper or cardboard as they can bring unwantes chemicals including PFOS into soil. Have you researched this?

[@WellGroundedGardens]

It’s been decades since I worked in biochemistry, but I think that those are generally used in nonstick and water resistant coatings. You would maybe want to avoid pizza boxes or waxed butcher paper as an example, but you wouldn’t want those in any case for this purpose because they would be very slow to break down. Plain, untreated paper shouldn’t be an issue. Glossy finishes might…I’d have to see if those are water-resistant.

[@foxandwhalefarm9306]

Where do you buy your black plastic?

[@WellGroundedGardens]

Hi! We got ours several years ago (a large roll that I cut into smaller sheets); I don't have the exact same source, but this is similar: amzn.to/3QHUhOD. In general you want to search for "black and white silage tarp" and I'd suggest ta least 5 mil of thickness; 6 would be better.

[@jeffmeyers3837]

VIDEO TIMESTAMPS 1:06 Technique Summary: 1. Roofing Paper, 2. Cardboard, 3. Wood Chips, 4. Builder's Paper, 5. Black Plastic Tarps 1:15 Roofing Paper 2:49 Cardboard 4:24 Woodchips 6:53 Building Paper 8:14 Black Plastic Tarps

[@WellGroundedGardens]

Thanks!