What is best for vegetable garden pathways? Why I would never use pea gravel in my garden.

In this video I describe the pros and cons of 3 different substrates for your vegetable garden paths. We discuss stone/gravel, grass and wood chips as possible substrate for your paths and why we chose one vs the other two.
We are in SW Ohio, Zone 6a and are chronicling the building of our dream garden in our new 10 acre property.

[@boppingbetweenworlds8309]

I've contemplated this for some time now and was leaning toward a mulch walkway. This just gave me the encouragement I was looking for.

[@TheGardenFamily]

Glad it was a helpful discussion! Hope you have a wonderful gardening year!

[@bmilner3614]

Super helpful, thanks a bunch!!

[@TheGardenFamily]

Glad it was! Appreciate the comment :)

[@patriot-hj5vx]

I live in portland. The grass here grows like crazy. It gets 3 ft tall in the spring and hides snakes (little ones but nonetheless). My beds are about a foot and a half apart, and i can't fit a mower between them. I have 4 tons of gravel sitting in my driveway and my heart skipped a beat when i heard you'd never use it 😅

[@TheGardenFamily]

If you are 100% set on the layout it should be fine! And you will also need to be very clean with garden clean up (not getting organic matter into the stone) otherwise it will grow weeds! Best of luck

[@cbak1819]

We have slugs,snails and rolly polly bugs.. and they love mulch any guide line for pest pressure? Thanks for the fine detailed video.

[@TheGardenFamily]

Thank you! I do think that can be a problem early season with organic mulches. So for really wet areas that is a good consideration! We have been successful with beer traps for slugs. Wishing you a nice gardening season!

[@lindseyreyes983]

What about creeping thyme? It doesn't get more than 3 inches so wouldn't need to be mowed. It would be a pain to rip out if you wanted to change the layout, but would possibly be super easy to maintain.

[@TheGardenFamily]

Hmm, we have it on our property and use it between stone paths and along planting bed borders...my only concern would be how much abuse it could take (wheelbarrow, heavy foot traffic etc)...otherwise it would be great!

[@Dria00509]

I would love to be able to use wood chips but pest pressure is so bad here in the Texas, it would become a breeding ground for any and everything. Especially over the winter.

[@TheGardenFamily]

interesting, hadn't heard of that issue before, of course we get pretty cold in the winter here in Ohio. Most of the time if it does provide a safe harbor for insects it will do so for both beneficial and pest insects and I would think it would eventually balance out. What do you use instead?

[@florenceschachinger6239]

This was super helpful! Any kind of wood chips you suggest?

[@TheGardenFamily]

Thank you! We like rough cut arborists wood chips because they have both woody and green parts. We have been successful getting them for free from chipdrop.com

[@theresabanghart9143]

Thank you!

[@TheGardenFamily]

You’re welcome!

[@davidvankainen6711]

Yo. From MI, but anyone on a dirt road will have dust on top of that stone/plastic. Weeds grow, tops ripped off weeds continue. Horrible. Finally ripped that crap up, restoring the soil biome with loose mulch, woodchips where weeds pull out or get smothered. Maybe stones are nice if you want round up regularly, dont kill your crops!

[@TheGardenFamily]

Agreed! Stone works in arid climates where things only grow where you water but any place that gets summer rain it becomes a nuisance and a mess!

[@nickangelovski4358]

👍

[@TheGardenFamily]

🙏