Flame weeding. Of all the garden videos I've watched, this is the only one my husband ever got excited about, lol! (Btw, artists -- like me -- pay good money for vine charcoal like you made from your grape cuttings.) 🙂
I planted comfrey inside my blocks. They grow insanely well in our climate. Provide you with green manure in their leaves, their roots dig extremely deep to pull up nutrients for your other plants to reach, and you’ll never have weeds in you block holes again. The only potential downside is once you plant them you’ll never get rid of them. That’s fine with me as I also use them to feed my chickens and rabbits so I can’t ever have too much of it.
Best thing I did was to buy a torch and a Milwaukee tiller attachment. Could not have imagined the time these two items save me in my raised beds. Bought a 200 gallon trough from Tractor Supply to mix my soil and compost out of the compost pile together for my containers. I have doubled my growing potential in less time.
I definitely want a flame weeder. Our weather is strange this year too in Va. We've had quite a bit of rain this winter, a few snow flurries, but it's like a weekend event now , you know it will rain. Then once summer gets here , it will get drier. Trying to get it dry enough to work the garden now to start spring planting here.
Wow! You got the flamethrower out. I have a smaller flame weeder I use to recover overgrown paths on some properties I work on. Never used it on the garden. It cleans the weeds up pretty quick and as you say the ash is minimal. Now promise you won't let the garden get that bad again. I never do. 🤣
I too use a flame weeder. Nice to get the garden tidied up. I've been out today preparing for the upcoming season in Central Arkansas 8a. I've heard it said that we are separated from the other animals in the kingdom by fire and thumbs. There are few other ways as well. Another discussion for another day.
Hi Scott thanks for sharing. I'm heading to harbor freight this week to get me a flame thrower. Great idea. I have an over grown spot that I was wanting to plant some sweet corn. I was going to hoe out the weeds but this is much easier and kills the top bed seeds as well. Many thanks from Texarkana.
I’m watching your video right now and I am hoping that you use a small torch to put the holes in your weed fabric for the plants. Cutting it with scissors or knife is not a good idea because it will unravel. It will save you many a headache, and money by using the small handheld torch method.💚 Great video Scott!
I have Bermuda grass all over my garden. We cover with black plastic during the winter. In the spring after removing the plastic we burn and leave the plastic off for two to three weeks until things start to sprout again, then cover again with plastic for two more weeks. It's a ton of time and moving plastic twice, but it keeps the Bermuda grass out until my plants get established. I am putting in more raised beds every year, but can't afford more than one or two each year. God bless y'all and keep growing.
Thanks for the garden tour. I love the borage that reseeds itself every year. All I have to do is transplant them. They really confuse the squash vine borers. My single seed challenge this year is a ground cherry. Still nothing showing yet. Started it in vermiculite.
Love your video. I think I have a flame thing in my garage that was my mother in laws. So going to get a tank of propane and have at it. Don’t know why I haven’t thought of this. 🤔anywho. Thank you so much. Happy Gardening.
My single seedling died. my seedlings are pathetic, so will have to replant outdoors as the weather cooperates. I will put the flops into the compost or containers.
I wish I could do this because I have a serious weed problem in my raised bed. But, it's in a community garden in a county park so there's no way they would allow it. It is also full of potato bugs.
Its been a tough couple garden years in our area but I have high hopes for this year. We seem to be actually having a spring and getting some much needed rain (fingers crossed for more this week). I lost many things to the drought but what is a gardener to do but begin again.
So you plan to cut holes into that fabric to plant or you are just putting it there until panting time to keep weeds down then you’ll remove it? It seems like if you used a regular mulch like wood chips it would cut down on the weeds as well as adding nutrients to the soil when it decomposes. I’m in central Texas and every winter we get storms that break off a bunch of tree branches all over the place. I collect them and chip them up to use as mulch and have covered my whole garden that way. It works really well to keep the weeds down and when they do pop up it’s easy to pull them out.
I plan to cut holes and grow through that. The soil is already very healthy and this practice is easier than wood mulch for an old dude like me. I'll do wood mulch in the future again but this is something I do from time to time.
Mulch would be good, but the weed cloth is a periodic "go nuclear" method to really kill weeds. Mulch eventually gives up to the weeds in late summer here, the weed cloth will not.
Nice way to kill weeds. How do you process your rosemary? I have a bush a little bigger than yours and was wondering if you prune or just cut what you need. Thanks have a great night.
Hey there Mr Scott! Great video! Do you think I could flame throw weeds in metal beds? We're converting most of ours from wood to metal and easy cleanup would be a great excuse to buy a flame thrower, lol. Single seed challenge died on my end....however.....4 more popped up in it's place! It was a mystery volunteer I found out in the garden.
Do you think the flame affects any other nutrients in the soil? I just did a big reset and flamed a lot in a bed that was taken over by fire ants…wondering how much amending I should do…any ideas?
Not too much of a change, it just converts the weeds to ash and carbon and there is not too much ash to worry about. I amend every year though just to keep healthy soil.
New gardener here so this may be a silly question…but does anyone know if I can use this torching method if I follow the square foot gardening method and have peat and vermiculite mixed in with my compost?
No reason you can't, although if you have a large percentage of peat, don't let the flame stay in 1 spot on your soil for too long, and keep it high in case it burns a bit of your surface peat.
