Make Your Garden Weed Free Forever In 2 Easy Steps!

What's going on, gardeners? It's Saturday, April 22nd, and weed germination season is in full swing here on the southeastern coast of North Carolina. That's why on today's video, I'm going to share with you two steps to have a nearly weed-free garden so you will never have to waste hours of your precious time weeding your garden ever again. If you're new to the channel, please consider subscribing and hitting the bell to receive new video notifications, and check out our Amazon storefront and spread shop in the video description for a list of the gardening products I use and awesome custom-designed apparel and other gear. Your support is greatly appreciated. While it's basically impossible to have a 100% weed-free garden, you can knock the weed pressure down 95% or more. I used to spend a couple hours every single month pulling weeds, and I have dramatically reduced that to maybe five to ten minutes a month tops, and I'm going to show you exactly how I accomplish that. The first step is the most important step, and that is to apply a two to three inch layer of a natural mulch to your garden beds. This bed right here is full of leeks and tomatoes, and I started planting the leeks out in January, and this three inch thick mulch layer has been on this bed ever since, and you will be hard-pressed to find a single weed in it. Since January, I have not spent a single second pulling any weeds in this garden bed, and here I'll prove it to you. This is the leek and tomato bed. You cannot find a single weed in this bed. It is absolutely beautiful, and if you meticulously mulch your beds with a three inch thick layer of mulch, you can have incredible results like this. I can't find a single weed even if I get down on my hands and knees. Oh wait, look, I have just a couple of pine trees in here that are germinating. We had the worst pine pollen season I have ever seen in my entire life since living here, so all you have to do is pluck, pluck, pluck. There you go. I've spent a total of maybe seven seconds weeding this bed since January. Those are the only things that I've ever seen germinate in this super thick mulch layer. The reason why the mulch layer prevents weed seed germination is because seeds effectively have to germinate in soil, so if you have a three inch thick mulch layer, that mulch layer will be thick enough that all the natural seeds that are blowing around in the air, they can't land on the soil layer, so that blocks the germination of the weed seeds. It acts like a deciduous forest where all of the leaves drop from the sky and it blocks out that soil layer so you don't have all of these things germinating in a forest. That protects the forest floor. Well, you're emulating that exact same thing in your garden bed. That's why you need that three inch thick mulch layer. You need it to be thick enough so the seeds that fall from the sky and blow around in the air naturally can't find any gaps in the soil. Now, you may be asking yourself, well, you just pulled a couple of pine tree seedlings out of your garden bed. Why is that? Well, that's because I applied this triple shredded hardwood mulch over three months ago in January, so it is naturally breaking down. It's been warm for quite some time here in North Carolina, so it's about time that I apply more mulch because if I don't and I let this break down, this can happen. This garden bed right here is a garden bed that I have not mulched since last year, so it has been an entire year since any mulch was applied to it. As a result, the mulch layer has naturally decomposed and I'm seeing weeds germinate everywhere. That's because the natural weed seeds in the air are landing on the soil level and they're having no competition and no problems germinating. That's why this bed is in such bad shape. This has to be weeded and then I can apply more mulch to it and that will block further germination. Now, you may be asking yourself, well, if the mulch breaking down leads to more weed seed germination, why don't I just apply a mulch that will never break down like a rubber mulch or a stone mulch and I can stay weed-free forever? Well, that is not what you want to do. You want to apply a natural mulch that naturally decomposes and breaks down because it's that decomposing organic matter that breaks down in your soil that feeds the soil microbiome and it keeps all the natural bacteria and fungi that are in your soil and beneficial very happy. It keeps your soil well-fed and it keeps your soil healthy. So, the goal is to keep adding natural mulch that does decompose in your bed so you keep that soil very healthy. This is what feeds your garden over the long haul. So, what you need to do is stay on top of the mulch, make sure it doesn't decompose too quickly and keep adding a couple inches to maintain that three-inch mulch layer and you'll have plenty of time to do it because you're not wasting all this time weeding your garden anymore. Now, when it comes to what is the best mulch to add to your garden, there is no true best mulch. That's going to be up to you and what you can source locally and for the best price that works well in your garden. Really, there are only a few mulches that you should avoid. You should avoid rubber mulch because that's usually made out of tires and old rubber waste products that is not good for your soil. You should avoid all dyed mulches because dyed mulches are usually leftover construction products like lumber and plywood and pallets that may be contaminated with chemicals or pressure treated and then they grind them up and they dye them with artificial colors to make it look like real wood when it's not. Just use a natural product. I don't care if that's shredded hardwood bark mulch, pine bark nuggets, I don't care if it's weed free and seed free grass clippings or ground up leaves or pine needles that you source naturally from your own yard. Just use a natural mulch product. That's really the only rule here. As amazing as mulching is to reduce weed pressure in your garden and around your yard, it is not completely foolproof because there is a scenario where mulching fails to block weeds and for that reason, I'm going to give you my second tip which is to use weed barriers strategically around your yard and garden where mulching can fail. Weed barrier comes in all different lengths and widths. If you're interested where to get it and you want the exact products that I use for your convenience, I will link them all in my Amazon storefront down in the video description underneath the list garden accessories and I will also place direct links for each individual item for your convenience as well in the video description. The scenario where mulching fails is when seeds fall on top of the bare unprotected soil layer before you're able to apply mulch. Once the seed is already down on top of the soil layer, if you do apply a thick layer of mulch on top of that seed, some of the seeds still will germinate. That mulch layer will snuff some of it out and prevent germination but some will break through and that is the scenario that we have going on right here in this raised garden bed. Now last year, I had all of my sweet peppers planted in this raised garden bed and I mulched them very thickly when I planted the peppers but we have a very long pepper growing season here so over the course of the six months that all the peppers in this bed last year were growing, the mulch broke down and by the end of the year there was basically no mulch left and all of the old peppers fell to the ground and seeded the ground and I'm having a germination issue because there are seeds germinating all over this bed. Planted in between my tomato rows are shallots and you can see in the bare soil I'm having lots of stuff germinate and all of those plants that are germinating are peppers that were seeded last year so I have peppers germinating all over the place so I had to come up with a different way to deal with this problem because mulching alone is not sufficient. This volunteer pepper germination problem was present throughout the entire raised garden bed but this solution I came up with has only confined the germination problem to a few narrow rows making it very easy for me to deal and that solution was to plant my rose using a weed barrier product. Now the reason why this will work is while a natural mulch layer will snuff out the majority of seeds it will not snuff out all of them. This product is a synthetic product that will snuff out 100 percent of the seeds that are on the ground. If they germinate they will immediately die off because of the total lack of light. They will be suffocated so that is why this product worked. So all I did was and I bought a 16 inch wide weed barrier product because that is the perfect width for the rows that I was planting. So you can go out and purchase whatever width product you need for whatever rows you are planting and then you just cut holes in them to place the individual transplants and I will show you exactly how I did that. All I did was I took the weed barrier and I ran it through the width of the raised garden bed where I was going to plant my tomatoes and then I used these garden staples to secure the edges of the weed barrier down and hold it in place. Then I cut these square holes exactly where I was going to put my transplants so they could accommodate the root ball and I transplanted them directly into the squares that I cut out. And what this has effectively done is it makes it impossible for any of the weeds to germinate here, here, here and all throughout the bed. So my weeding pressure is going to be limited to only where I had previously planted my shallots. So all I have to do is maybe once a week go through and plant and pluck out just a couple of plants just like I'm showing you right now. And with that little bit of effort I now basically have a completely weed free onion row and this is going to save me a tremendous amount of time versus weeding the entire bed on a weekly basis. Then once those shallot seedlings get a little bit larger I'm going to thickly mulch them as well and mulch this entire garden bed with my tomatoes and shallots over with three inches of mulch and then I should never technically have to weed this bed again throughout most of the rest of the season until probably July and August once the mulch layer starts to break down and then those little slivers of rows where the shallots are planted I start to get some weed seed germination in there again. And keep in mind while the 16 inch wide product was perfect for my raised garden beds you can buy it in three feet four feet six feet whatever works out for you and use it as you see fit. In fact I have a third bonus tip for you and that is to use the various sized weed barrier products for your aisles and around landscaping to keep them weed free as well. In fact I used the three foot wide weed barrier product for all of the individual walking aisles between my raised beds. I used to have enormous amounts of weed seed germination throughout the aisles which gave me more pests because the pests would lay their eggs inside all of the weeds and I would have to painfully run the weed whacker on the lawnmower through all of these weird angles but since I put the weed barrier product down three years ago and secured it with those landscaping staples I haven't really had to weed my garden much more than five minutes here or there in between the cracks of the raised beds ever since. And if you're familiar with my container garden area I put weed barrier all over this area five years ago when I first moved into this house. This is the four foot wide weed barrier product so I didn't have to run the weed barrier roll so many times. I wish I knew at the time I could get it in six feet wide because it would have saved me even more time. But the gist of it was this when I purchased this property it was an empty sandy field and I knew I wanted to have a container garden here so I proactively put the weed barrier down before any weed seeds were able to germinate and I haven't had to pull a single weed in this entire area in five years. I have never had to mow it. It has been absolutely fantastic and this is the original five-year-old weed barrier. It's still good as new so if you want a defined container garden area that will be basically zero maintenance for five to ten years or longer use the weed barrier products. It is a lifesaver. Using these simple methods I've been able to have a nearly weed-free garden and I've reduced the amount of time I used to spend weeding from hours a month to minutes. Sometimes I don't even have to weed at all so I just wanted to take this time and share these tips with you because many of you have asked me how I keep my gardens low in weed pressure and also about this strange barrier that I have all throughout my yard and garden. Many of you have asked about it so I wanted to take this time and make this video for you. I have to cut it a little bit short because it's starting to rain on me but as usual if you have any questions please ask them in the comments section below and I will do my best to answer them. If you're curious about any of the products that I featured in this video or that I use in my garden in general they are all linked down in my Amazon storefront link in the video description and I will put direct links to the weed barrier products as well if you're interested and while you're there check out my spreadshop for custom merch if you want to support the channel. Thank you all so much for watching and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Oh Dale dad got you a brand new Nerf ball because you killed your other one it lasted it lasted almost five entire months which is really good for you so here's another one. This is Dale's favorite toy in the world and go Daley he's gonna go crazy he's gonna go crazy and there he goes