In my garden, weeds like bermuda grass can quickly take over a newly formed bed, ruining my harvests and starving out my plants. Here’s a three month experiment on a few different organic, low-cost strategies to reduce weed pressure in your garden.
I find a HEAVY layer of woodchip mulch to be one of the most effective strategies, provided you have the time to wait. If not, forming a bed with sheet mulch, compost, and other amendments keeps the weeds down long enough to have a successful crop.
With some weed species, constantly smothering them vs. actively combating them seems to be the right move.
0:00 – Intro
0:41 – Anatomy of a Weed
2:08 – Don’t Till
2:40 – Clearing
4:11 – Smothering With Woodchips
5:33 – Covered vs. Uncovered Soil
6:16 – Sheet Mulching
8:02 – Final Thoughts
SUPPORT EPIC GARDENING
→ Buy Birdies Raised Beds: https://shop.epicgardening.com
→ Buy My Books: https://shop.epicgardening.com/collections/books
→ Support Directly: https://www.patreon.com/epicgardening
LEARN MORE
Epic Gardening is much more than a YouTube channel:
→ 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/epicurbanhomestead
→ In-Depth Articles: http://www.epicgardening.com/blog
→ Daily Podcast: https://apple.co/2nkftuk
→ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/epicgardening/
→ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/epicgardening
→ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@epicgardening
→ Discord Server: https://discord.gg/cuXxvKRwKN
→ FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/epicgardening/
→ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/epicgardening
→ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/epicgardening
DISCLAIMER
Epic Gardening occasionally links to goods or services offered by vendors to help you find the best products to care for plants. Some of these may be affiliate links, meaning we earn a small commission if items are purchased. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. More info on our process: https://www.epicgardening.com/disclaimer/
Oh man, these weeds in my yard in San Diego are nasty. Even after hardscaping and landscaping they are relentless. I don’t know what’s the folks did here. I’m hoping to get a lot of mulch some day to take care of this once and for all
I get a ton of thistle
Halp, I've been pulling grass all day. So glad I came across your video!
Thank God I don't have that problem in my garden crazy crazy internet in video thou
To get this out of the way, I’m In Utah. My dear, lovely neighbor has ivy.like.crazy coming through the fence that he has no plans of getting rid of on his end. We weeded it out and woke up the next day and there it was again! We can’t remove it fast enough, even despite freezing temps and snow. Help me get rid of the ivy, will ya? It’s coming from his side and then sprouting in my soil too. I’m planning on cardboard lay down and straw mulch once I get it cleared, with an organic weed killer underneath. Is there anything I can do to get rid of it once and for all so my new raspberry and blueberry starts won’t get overrun that are in one half of the bed, and I can confidently sow my squash and zucchini next month without worry that their roots will be strangled out?
My 3 acre yard and surrounding areas are covered with Bermuda grass. I've battled this grass for 20+ years. The best and easiest way is to tarp/cover the area, this will starve and kill the grass. I use 6ft wide commercial weed block. After covering for one season pull up and leave 4to6 foot of weed block border to keep grass out. Make sure you don't shoot grass clippings into area and you will make out just fine. This grass can grow deep under the surface and spread very quickly.Good luck guys.
Thank you SOOOOO much. I was wandering what the heck that was.You could use it to anchor a sand dune. That stuff is vicious!
Good luck. Hate that grass!!!
Digging out each part by hand is what I had to do and keep doing. Kept at it all growing season and now I'm only fighting the edges where it creates Bermuda highways.
The worst part about most lawn grass species for me is I have really bad allergies to most of them so ill go to pull some from the bed forgetting me gloves and wonder why I have an allergic welts on my hands from the suckers
That’s a crap ton of wood chips lol
welcome to creeping Charlie weed
7:50 “humanely”
Bermuda in clay sucks, I have been fighting this stuff in Texas non stop.
i feel you bro. Bermuda grass is gnarly. and it's not even a good looking grass. it makes everything look worse.
Thank you! What about CATs?! They keep pooping in my garden boxes! How do I get them to not want to poop in my garden?
Ever consider napalm
and 18 feet of wood-chips over overlapping 3/4 inch stainless steel sheets and an army of genetically engineered tortoises that eat nothing but Bermuda Grass? Don't bother. The weed wins.
When I was digging through hard clay in order to build my first raised bed a couple of decades ago I found a "runner" as thick as a man's thumb that was about as strong as a hemp rope.
I have a grudging respect for that plant. After the nuclear holocaust, or solar micro-nova there's gonna be cockroaches and Bermuda Grass and whatever is at the bottom of the Marianas Trench and under miles of ice in Antarctica in lakes remaining to keep life on Earth thriving.
Kevin, the crappy lawn we have on our curb got infested by Bermuda. Probably also has so much thatch that there's just no way to save the lawn. You had me in the opening shot.
I live in south Florida and St Augustine has a similar weedy growth pattern. I despise it.
After battling crab grass in our flower bed for 4 years, I dug out the entire bed- (8-12” deep, depending where in the slope it is). I Laid a mid weight cotton fabric (from the fabric store) edge to edge and up the sides of the brickwork in the bed and had fresh soil brought in- then put 4-6” of mulch. This year, I’m happy to say that I haven’t had to pull but a few weeds, and only along back edge did I have to pull 2 small grab grass newbies. Around the front, I have 8” deep bricks where I pour boiling water along them (on the grass side) to keep the crabgrass from creeping back in. In my prior home, the previous owner planted spearmint- I battled that for 14 years, til I finally gave up, covered the entire bed with salt and covered it with black plastic and then mulch and I kept plants in pots on the mulch for a couple years. It worked and the owner now plants directly in the bed without spearmint. Weeds… UGH!
We dug up the Bermuda grass in our yard to put in an above ground pool, when we lived in So. California.. We put down thick black liner just before setting up the pool with the thickest pool liner they make. Two to three weeks after the pool was filled, my son comes up out of the pool and says, "Hey, Mom! Grass is growing through the bottom of the pool!"
We had to drain the pool, do more digging, and put down hard black plastic … not sheeting, before buying a new liner and setting the pool up again.
That stuff is Devil grass and almost impossible to keep out of flower beds and unwanted areas.
What about touching them? I’ve seen a tool that incinerates the weeds. It seems cruel, but Bermuda grass is pure evil!
The worst weeds we have: horse tail, wild blackberries, creeping buttercup. Good luck!
Currently battling cypress spurge in one of my raised beds. I think a previous homeowner planted it on purpose as an ornamental without knowing just how invasive and noxious it is. The sap it secretes when broken can cause skin irritation/blisters so I have to pull it with skin fully covered. I even read someone saying they had a reaction through their clothes. Not a fun thing to deal with. I'm on round 2 of digging it out. It spreads via rhisomes. I'm almost to the point of digging up everything, getting rid of all of the dirt and starting over. It's made its way in between plants I want to keep. Not sure how many more times I'm going to have to pull it out before the end of the growing season.
Whaaaat that’s Bermuda grass!? I thought it was crab grass.
That's a stolon, not rhizome growth. Love your vids from Australia