I use this method and take a bucket with me when weeding, all the weeds/grass I pull go in the bucket and are transported out of the garden. After gardening season I put down a thick layer of hay for the winter to prevent winter weeds from coming up. tree leaves work well for mulching a garden also
Summed up: Add a thick enough layer of hay so the weeds witll not come through (or fewer). Seeds from the hay can germinate, but it is more likely that it is is shoots from the underground. When setting up a new garden (transforming lawn etc into a garden) you are applying cardboard anyway to smother the plants in the underground. If weeds come up nearby small seedlings (so you cannot just add more hay) you need to shove the mulch aside, give a few stripes of carton around the base of the seedling directly on the soil see 4:50. Then shove the covering hay back in place add some more hay and cautiously step on it to compress it in height. All leaves must be above the hay layer so the young plant will not be smothered. 8:15 And the plants at the fence recovered 5 days after covering them with (more) hay. they got greener so they can do (more) photosynthesis now.Likely the cooler ground temperatures help them.
@@PHIL5251 You can use hay, Ruth Stout used hay exclusively in her garden for decades with great success. She had to address the weed seed issue many times because people were worried about weeds sprouting in their garden, essentially you just make the hay mulch deep enough that the weed seeds don't touch the soil, simple enough. (Just the same as any other mulch, it's essentially a germination barrier; that's why you have to pull back the mulch to plant.) Hay is also richer in nitrogen than straw so it'll break down more quickly and contribute more nutrients to your soil.
My old beloved neighbor dr lim used even news paper, to cover ground for weeds. He grew mostly tomatoes in his city yard n some others. His tomato s were even coming up thew the cracks from years of planting. Im using card board to cover an area for next yr
Thank you for this! I post Ruth Stout updates on my chan too and like to stress that it isn't a "set it and forget it" method but that overall it's so much less work.
You can dry grass clippings before the seeds come. Then you can use it safely in your gardens. Scyth cut grsss even better. You get a free upper body workout as well
I've used straw for my first 2 years with a weed free garden. Not this spring!! I bought straw again , put it down and within 5 days my gardens looked as though I planted 500 pounds of grass seed!!!! I believe its wheat straw. The wheat ends were sprouting by the millions!! I got so frustrated I ripped it all out! Now I don't know what to use.
I used cardboard one year and found the pieces were too big. They acted more like roof shingles diverting water away from the plant. Krystal's little pieces were perfect. If you need to cover a large area, use lots of little pieces. Big pieces work for walkways, of course.
@@casestyer1166 I thought about this for a minute. I would guess the tiny amount of bad chemicals that would go into the ground, then the plant, then the fruit would be a tiny fraction of what we are exposed to on a daily basis from driving, artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, trace amounts of herbicides, fungicides, pesticides - the list goes on. But I try to use the cleaner cardboard if its a concern.
In Florida it works down 1 1/2 inches a month. Not only do I have to put down hay but newspaper, cardboard and anything else I can find. Once I tried those round things and they were full of bugs.
if your bale sits and gets rained on, it will most likely start growing. Mine always do. the starts are easy to pull out as you sprinkle the straw on bed.
I've used hay and it is a good mulch but I had seeds sprouting in my garden so I started using pine straw and worked much better for me also by end of gardening (fall ) it seemed to have rotted quicker and turned into a rich dark soil sooner than hay also during the straw gathering there were many night crawlers (worms) to be harvested with the straw to be added to the garden a double bonus I would say
Hay is scarce and expensive in Vermont where we had a drought last summer. Mulch hay is $5 per bale, IF you can find it. Canada had a drought too, and that is our go-to place when hay harvest is sparse her in Vermont.
You may have to use woood chips, those should be abundant in VT (with stressed trees that need to be cut down, pine beetle etc). Just do not work them in, keep them as cover and shove them aside. Advantage: in VT it is cooler so they do not break down fast (in Floridia they are gone after 1 year).
Yay! So glad I found your channel, new subscriber here. I just got finished watching the documentary about Ruth Stout and I'm so curious if anyone's tried gardening her way and to learn more about it! I can't wait to binge watch your videos! Thanks! 🤗
@@KrystalsTexasGarden thank you so much for the welcome! 🤗💜 Yes! I would have loved to know her as well, just to sit and have a conversation with her would be amazing!
Tried the layered cardboard and hay. What didn’t compost, chickens dug up. As I was collecting larger pieces, I kept finding termites and roaches. I got rid of ALL the cardboard, asap! Reverted to a ground cover, that composts over time, and layered hay atop of it. Garden was doing great, until leaves started urning yellow & plants began to die,for unknown reason. I tried changes in watering, organic bug killer, organic fungus killer, etc. After all plants died, I started clearing out garden bed. *TREE ROOTS killed my plants,* by roots growing from underneath and choking my plant roots to death! Was told the roots were seeking water and nutrients. Unfortunately, we live ‘out in the woods’, so there’s NO getting away from the tree roots entirely. ☹️
The school near us has a cardboard recycling dumpster. Sunday I went and collected cardboard to improve the area around my pumpkins because they were outgrowing their area. I still haven't found a source for untainted hay. Love your tips.
Hi, thanks for the videos, I really want to try this method in my Hill Country garden. Is coastal hay ok to use? Is tgere any difference between using hay and straw? Thanks!!
Hello, I am in south Texas. I have started using hay for my garden also but am scared of snakes hiding under the hay. Did you find snake under your hay mulch? What do you do to deter snakes from hiding under the hay?
Just found your channel looking for what people are calling the Ruth Stout method. I am in west Texas so probably at least 5 hours away from your lush green living lol. However, some promoting this call it straw which is to me different than hay. Is straw and hay used interchangeably depending on which part of the country the host is from?
@@KrystalsTexasGarden I am not from the UK. I just have been watching events over there and have noticed some talk of it. They are in a situation where a garden could be extremely useful. The USA will be trending into recovery over the next few months as people get the vaccine. In the UK, they have a double wammy of covid and brexit tanking the economy, One big issue they will have is food imports. Planting potatoes, beets, carrots, winter squash etc can give them a bit extra healthy food. The ones I suggested are because they keep for a while.
I normally add the straw before I transplant or sow seeds into my raised beds. When sowing seeds, should I wait for the seedlings to get up to a certain height? Or should I put straw down and just clear open a small area for each seed I'm sowing?
Hi Krystal, good idea, I will use some cardboard underneath the hay too. I have one question: when laying cardboard around the plant, you didn't leave any room from the plant for water/rain to get inside, is it because the cardboard pieces used are small and narrow, water/rain get in through the hay can reach the plant easily? Thanks
Please help, I need advice. I have covered the whole garden with hay, the soil is great, I don't have to water it but the snails eat everything!!! It's unbelievable. All my peppers for this season are gone. But I can't scatter blue seeds because they all disappear in the hay and the snails still come. They are now going to my greenhouse too, it all looks so sad. 😢😢😢😢😢😢
Hi Krystal! I am so enjoying your videos. I'm curious to the type of hay you use? This year I'm mulching with cedar mulch hoping to help keep plant munching insects away. Have you ever tried it? BTW, I grow in raised beds if that makes any difference.
Nothing really. You have to watch both of them for being treated with herbicides. In my area, they spray herbicides on straw before harvesting. So just make sure you know your source.
Hay is dried grasses, including the seeds. If you separate out/thresh and keep the seeds aside, what remains of the stems is called straw. Ideally straw doesn’t have seeds which can germinate and grow in unwanted areas of your garden. Practically, some seeds remain.
The HAY has lots of carbon , that's why your eggplant is weak. To balance the carbon , you need nitrate . Add nitrate , I think your garden will boom and bloom .
Hello again, Krystal : ) Thank you for helping me last week with my chiggar problem. I'm planning to get out in the garden tomorrow to "add more hay!" and will try the essential oil repellent you suggested. I have another question for you. We are in north central Texas and as I said last week, this is my first year gardening in Texas. I can't tell from your picture, but do you have "black gumbo" soil like we do? I'm not sure if that's what it is called everywhere, but that's what the locals here call it. It's pretty rich looking when it's wet or damp, but with even one hot day, the surface completely dries out and large, wide cracks form. When I dig down beneath that surface layer, I hit limestone. I'm pretty sure my plants' roots must be hitting that limestone and then they stop growing and wilt. Do you have any suggestions for me? Thanks!
I used costal bermuda grass hay - sheet composted it, in my garden several years ago, and it sprouted costal bermuda grass, which, once established, is impossible to eradicate, shy of using Roundup, which I won't do, so I abandoned that site. It is much safer to use OLD, really old, rotten hay rolls of Bahia grass hay that has a low likelihood of containing seed heads in it, plus, you can pull Bahia grass out fairly easy, compared to costal bermuda grass. Moral of the story, don't ever used costal hay in your garden. P.s. I didn't have costal hay, previously in my garden, so it had to have come from the hay I put down in it; what a mistake!! I live in north central Florida. Here, costal bermuda hay is considered the best "horse quality" hay, and bahia is lower quality and is considered, "cow hay".
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The hay will sprout seedlings isnt really true. Everywhere we feed our cows and goats a bale of hay that spot will not have any grass grow there till we take a tractor over and remove it, some will even burn the leftovers piles. We try to unroll the bale which seems to help but not a big difference. As far as chemical free that would be very difficult to find. The chemicals remain in the soil for years so your "first cut" is still laced with chemicals from the last several seasons. Even your organic fields have it if anybody nearby use them .
Hey Nancy check outJim Kovaleski and what he does in Maine. Nothing but grass (makes hay with Scythe) and acres of it. The nitrogen content in grass geeds the soil, keeps the soil biology so active. Hope you can look him up and it works. 👍🌱
Your eggplants look very unhealthy , have aged, although they are young . Something went wrong during their early growth stages (frost , high heat, or lack of water). The soil looks healthy though .
Lol hay ? You mean. Straw . Hay is what animals eat and filled full of seeds you don’t use this in the garden, straw is a byproduct from grain Spoken like a city kid
Lol, nope I meant what I said... hay. I follow the Ruth Stout Method, and she used hay. Look her up. I'll have a video coming out tomorrow about the subject. Make sure you subscribe & hit the bell so your notified when I post. Thank you for watching, commenting, and supporting my channel.