What you shared was also my experience, however, just a couple points: the more consecutive seasons you mulch the less weed pressure you will have in general. Second, you really have to be careful to get unsprayed organic straw. Many people are running into residual herbicides that will kill most of your annual garden. Also, as the straw breaks down it will not add as much nutrition to the soil as leaves or remial woodchips (the entire tree shredded, leaves/needles bark and wood). If you have anything germinate in your straw you may gain nitrogen by simply turning it over to disturb the small seedlings. Mostly it's wise to alternate mulches from year to year for the sake of the plant's nutritional needs. Thanks for your insight.
I’ve used wheat straw and it is great like you say. This is the most comprehensive upload on mulch that I’ve seen in a dozen years. Thank you for caring so much about your gardening craft and followers.
Straw mulch will encourage a bacteria dominated microbiome whereas hardwood chips will encourage a fungal dominated microbiome. Plants have an evolutionary succession of going from bacteria dominated soils to fungal dominated soils (ie grasslands to forests). So depending on what type of plants you want to grow, you should encourage the appropriate soil microbiome for the desired plants. Your fig trees are "woody" plants that would prefer the fungal end of the spectrum whereas your bananas are more "grass like" and prefer the bacteria end of the spectrum.
You would think that, but the straw actually gets stuck together in a fungal web as well. I have used both around my figs, and they love both. I haven’t seen a difference in vigor. I think that matters most is just having a mulch layer, in general. When vegetable gardening, I think the trouble with hardwood mulch is it makes it difficult to direct seed.
How does this not cause a nightmare for weeding in your garden?? my yard is also a bunch of random weeds, clovers, dandelions, those purple cluster flowers, wild garlic grass, ect.. wouldn’t you want to avoid putting those in your garden?
@@brandypruitt4467 only if theyre flowering and have flowers mature enough to have viable seed , all those seeds can blow in on the wind anyways so i dont pay much attention to it and as he mentioned in the video it compacts down and prevents germination
Wheat straw around here costs 5 or six bucks a bale if you can find it. I have used grass clippings mixed with leaves for years with excellent results and since they come free from my yard, this figures into the total cost of growing my food. One issue is that the leaves fall in the fall and the grass is collected in the summer therefore I have to save the leaves until the clippings are available.
Great vid. Nice to see young people taking up the hoe. This veteran gardener agrees: mulch is key, but be careful with pure wood mulches. They support very limited soil biology, most of it being fungus (while annual veggies require a bacterially-dominated spoil). Worse, slugs and flea beetles love it. I learned this the hard way, losing many crops to it in the early '90s. These days, I use uncured compost as a mulch on no-dig vegetable beds. Moving the compost from the pile to the beds frees up space so I can begin another compost pile, and spreading rough compost thin aerates it and exposes it to worms, speeding up the curing process and removing toxic chemicals. Also, the best much for trees is a living ground cover. I have strawberries under my dwarf trees, even the fruit trees, and wild ginger or Pennsylvania sedge under the larger oaks and maples.
I have used both... The one time I used straw mulch, I chopped it up really fine and put a thin layer over freshly seeded pots. Within days these huge tree pots were filled with wheat sprouts. I think the key is to add a very thick layer of mulch. Also, how the wheat was harvested plays a huge role in the amount of wheat seeds in the mulch.
Great video. I agree that mulch is a critical part of gardening success. Your bold statement is accurate. The benefits of composting and amending soil are reduced without protecting the soil with mulch. I vary mulch by location in the garden, but everything has a great organic cover.
@@TheMillennialGardener Like you, straw is my favorite mulch in the veggie garden. I use dried grass clippings as a light mulch when I direct seed and then add straw when the plants are bigger. Because I get a lot of wind, I often mix the straw with crushed leaves and it tends to stay in place better.
@@GardenerScott I wish I could use grass clippings. One of the few things I miss about living up north is the lawns. Fescue and Kentucky Blue makes some good mulch. Our lawns here on the NC coast are centipede grass, which is technically a weed with a wicked rhizome. When you cut the lawn, it's 50% seed tops. It's brutal 😅 We don't have much in the way of deciduous trees, either. We just have boring old pine needles. Better than nothing, though!
I covered my lawn with forest leaves and then heaps and heaps of freshly cut straw ( it was really long grass from the local area cut amd dropped, and collected by me.) After a few months of doing nothing, I have four inches of the most incredible compost on top of my super sandy soil. I actually cannot believe how well this has worked. I also heavily mulched all the other areas of my garden. I had some butternut seedlings in the ground for a long time and they weren't doing anything. I was going to rip them up, but the mulch kicked them into gear and they started growing !
There is no best mulch in my opinion. Different mulches for different purposes and different crops and different climates. For example here in the subtropics of Australia if you use straw too thick then it goes anarobic. Forms a layer that can also be hard for moisture to get through. Every mulch has a purpse except the artifical dyed ones. They all have different decompostition rates and different fungi and bacteria feed on different mediums. I use a multitude of differnt mulches and trial them to see how they go. Different textures in the garden is also very beautiful. Woodchip here, leaf mulch over there and some straw round the place as well . I enjoyed the video and information just sharing my experience.
Agreed, I like to use different materials, mixed together or just when I get something at a certain moment, I go with that. Straw should never be too thick and never walked over, that reasonably prevents it from becoming anaerobic, but never completely.
I generally agree with your premise. The "best" mulch is the mulch that you can get and afford. I really enjoy straw, but if somebody gave me a giant truckload of arborist woodchips, I'd take that every time over paying for straw. My point is, if you're paying for it, straw probably has the best balance of weed suppression and cost benefit. It's cheaper than the bark mulches, and it provides better weed suppression. If you live in a place where your neighbors put out bags of leaves this time of year and you can take them for free, that's even better. Anything free and natural is the way to go.
I have to say , my sheep only eat leaves off the alfalfa hay i give them. I found myself with all this left over straw. So i started using it as mulch in the garden beds and around the tree's. Everything is thriving! Bonus is the mixed in sheep poop in the straw 😂❤. Happy gardening. Great video
I think you should thin your banana plants & water them more. (A lot more.) Maybe to three or four mother-baby pairs. Or two grandma-mom-baby trios. (I prefer trios as insurance to storms & frosts). Also, they look lonely. Plant some taros, ginger & chili peppers there, too. Trust me, they are friends & need the same humid environment. A papaya near the edge (more sunlight) will do great, too. It won’t tolerate wet feet as much as taro. Think humid tropical jungle- their original home. Fun tips: 1. You can culture some edible mushrooms under there for fun. 2. Tabasco pepper plants will not bear much fruits there but you can harvest the leaves. Cook “tinola”. Best with green papayas. 3. Use the banana leaves as wrappers when steaming & roasting food. 4. After harvesting, chop down the banana plant & use it as mulch. Same with the peels. Earthworms love it! That will give the daughter banana plant more space & nutrients to grow. 5. Make that banana patch a turbo-compost place. Tuck your kitchen wastes, egg shells & cartons, etc under the mulch. Let volunteer chili peppers grow. 6. Banana & taro are very thirsty plants. Fortunately, they like gray water. Put your washing station beside them-washing produce, garden implements, or outdoor shower. 7. Banana blossoms are edible. 8. Practice permaculture.
I didn't read all the comments so this may have been mentioned already. I've used straw for many years now with great results. I think straw and hay get confused because hay is totally full of weed seeds whereas straw is not. I have gotten a few grassy strands here and there which are easy to pull out. Great content as usual🙂
Thank you! The difference between straw and hay is that hay is a product, and straw is a byproduct. With hay, you're getting all the seed tops, since that's the product that's sold. Straw is nothing more than the "bottoms" of cereal grains - oats, barely, wheat, etc. - after the seeds have already been harvested. Straw will still contain some seeds, but the overwhelming majority of seeds will be gone since that's what you eat when you eat grains. We had a *very* warm December, so I'm seeing *some* seed germination from my fresh straw. However, it's not much. By simply taking a hand rake, you can get rid of them all in about 30 seconds.
I used last year's wheat straw to mulch my new raised strawberry beds, and it IS great at holding moisture, the only problem is that I have bunches of wheat sprouting everywhere.
What’s your favorite mulch to use in your garden and around your trees? Let us know in the comments below! TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 Why Mulch Is The Best Tool For Organic Gardening 0:50 Mulch Varieties: Best And Worst Kinds Of Mulch 1:59 The Benefits Of Mulch For Your Garden 4:00 The Natural Mulch I Usually Use In My Garden 5:07 How I Use Hardwood Bark Mulch Around A Fruit Tree 5:34 Problem With Bark & Wood Chip Mulch In A Vegetable Garden 7:08 The Best Mulch For The Garden I've Found 9:05 Wheat Straw VS Hardwood Mulch Weed Suppression 13:39 Wheat Straw VS Hardwood Mulch Moisture Retention 16:59 Myths About Using Wheat Straw As Mulch 18:31 Using Wheat Straw In A Vegetable Garden 20:03 Final Thoughts On The Best Mulch For Gardening 20:50 Adventures With Dale
I use whatever is available, and honestly as long as the mulch is a few inches thick with at least the top 1" being composed of something that inherently contains many small air spaces with thin walls and minimally-connected surface area (straw, a mix of small twigs +/- leaves +/- scythed grass and/or weeds or hay) you get the absolute best results. FYI, you want to put solid mulch underneath hollow mulch, not the other way around. The reason for that is that having a top layer of hollow mulch acts like a thatch roof in almost every respect: it has extremely high insulation value because of the many small and non-continuous air spaces with minimal solid-to-air ratios and thus the heat in the top layer of exposed stems is vented within that same layer and is minimally transferred to lower layers thanks to the minimal surface contact between individual stems. The only difference between the mulch and the roof is that the horizontal angle, open ends on both sides, and loose packing of the mulch allows for free vertical movement of rain and other sources of condensed water vapor that contact the mulch, such as fog or dew drops. The main differencesbetween the cooling effect provided by sun- and surface- exposed solid vs hollow mulches that are in direct contact with the soil are: 1) Solid mulches will always capture and retain more environmental water within themselves than hollow mulches, because they have more continuous mass and similar or greater moisture-retaining qualities compared to hollow dry mulches, which is not a big deal during heavy rains but can be pretty significant if you are only getting like .1 inches at a time with several hours or days of sunlight and/or wind between such events , because a significant portion of such small volume precipitation will never reach the deeper layers of mulch or the soil beneath, and will instead be lost to evaporation before they can benefit the plants. Dew only happens twice per day, morning and evening, and the water volume delivered per square inch is very small, so it automatically counts as a low-volume precipitation event. 2) Solid mulches have more direct contact with the soil, and thus wick more moisture from the contact layer. The fewer and larger airspaces between such mulches allow for greater airflow within and between the mulch layers, which will always result in greater losses to evaporation. This is especially wood mulch of any type, as bark mulches tend to contain hydrophobic resins (especially conifer barks) that are slow to degrade and will not wick as much moisture as wood. The advantage of having lignified mulches like wood in direct soil contact is that you are providing a nutrient substrate that promotes a more "balanced" microbiome in terms of bacteria vs fungi vs protozoa. If you simply place a top layer of hollow mulch on top of this then you can get the best of both worlds, so to speak. This is both cheap and remarkably effective, because every new year's layer of wood/bark (solid layer) will compress the previous straw (hollow) layer, thus promoting its breakdown by increasing the decomposing straw's contact area with soil and increasing nutrient availability for the new feeder roots that aleays invade newly-forming humus. At the same time, the new straw layer on top of the new wood/bark layer minimizes temperature variations and moisture loss, while maintaining aeration and minimizing evaporative losses. This works every bit as well as it sounds, and I don't think that's too surprising... it's just a more efficient application of known material properties and the physics underlying said properties compared to a solid top layer with a hollow bottom layer.
Annual rye cover crop for winter. Then it dies in SC heat and becomes mulch. Turned my sand into soil after one season. Tied with chipped hardwood tree leaves chopped fine.
I like cover crops in garden, I do like hardwood mulch for trees except in times of heavy rain, which living on the gulf Coast happens a lot. I've had trees die from root rot.
I realize this video is a few months old and I'm just catching up. However, what about the resource you got the wheat straw from? As any supplement to your food when your trying to be natural as possible with no harsh chemicals...
Even if the wheat seeds germinate and grow, all you have to do is cut it before it goes to seed again. It's not like grass, it isn't perennial and will not continue to grow a root system. It's a one and done crop.
Aged Wood And leaf mulch is what I use. Be careful of the wheat hay, a good amount of is is sprayed with a chemical called grazon for weed control. Once sprayed with this chemical it will deter your garden plants if used as a mulch.
A simple way around that is to just let it sit out in the rain for a few months before using it. Those sprays have a pretty short half life, especially when exposed to full sun and rain. Letting it decompose will also kill off any active seeds.
What you say is true. Straw is the best mulch. However, most wheat farmers use persistent herbicides including Aminopyralid. Look it up. And there's no way to really know where those bales came from. If you are willing to risk several years of a sickly, stunted garden then go ahead and use it. At the end of the video you talk about how straw is the best "organic garden" mulch. If it has an Aminopyralid, it's not organic. If you are lucky enough to have a guaranteed organic, no pesticide supply of straw in your area then more power to you, but the rest of us have to roll the dice and take what we can get which is an unknown source. It's not worth the risk.
Is there any real evidence of that? Has there ever been a case study where a person who was growing organically brought in 3 bales of straw, spread it around their fruit trees, and disaster struck? I don’t believe there is. I believe it to be an Internet myth that people think could happen based on an MSDS sheet, but doesn’t actually happen in the real world. If you can provide an actual case study, I’d love to see it, but until then, I don’t have any concerns. Even if you are concerned, just let your bales sit out in the rain and sun for 3-6 months to begin decomposing. Any compounds will be so degraded it won’t matter anymore.
Very timely video for me...I'm using straw mulch for the first time on my winter garden. Thanks for the knowledge!🙂 I'm glad you and Dale had a sweet Thanksgiving Day.🙂
I'm glad to hear it was timely. Every day with Dale is a great day. We had good weather and he was in his element harassing everyone in the house for food. There is a *reason why* HOUND has become a verb!
i put a 6 to7 inch layer on all my32 inch walkways with exposed 12 inch wide beds dusted with crumbled straw bits as bed covering only water during germination and the hottest times and I am in inland CA.. love straw as insulator carbon supplement and worms galore! easy on the feet
Wheat straw can be expensive in many areas. There is also growing concern regarding persistent herbicides used in many grain crops to prevent weeds. These herbicides can destroy a vegetable garden. I live in the northeast and feel that shredded leaves and grass clippings as economical and safe mulch material.
Your videos are great I am a beginner so every tip you give has been so useful. I use fabric grow bags of various sizes and your tips in this type of growing has been invaluable. I now use mulch in all my veg herbs and plants.
I don't think my straw is wheat straw and this year a bale is $15! But I've been using straw and wow when it finally breaks down in a mix of soil it's like the black gold people talk about.
I have used wheat straw as a mulch for over wintering my grapes in zone 3. I do get a lot of volunteer wheat plants growing the next year but they are easy to pull out my
Straw is the stalk after the grain (seed head) is harvested so it there are very few seeds. Hay is made up of whole plants & if not harvested before seeds develop, can contain many seeds.
Precisely. Straw is a byproduct of the wheat harvest, so in theory, the seeds should be mostly removed. Allowing the straw bales to sit out in the weather for 3-6 months to begin decay can also be beneficial. That's what I sort of did by using them to insulate my bananas for 5 months prior to use. The result: ZERO weeds.
If done lightly for seedlings to pop but still need shaded soils and wind protection straw will send up tons of volunteers. Key is so what wheat is great grass with loads of benefits. Green fert or actually harvesting. The wheat. Bud I plan on doing a heavy layer to stop all unwanted growth after seedling develop
Pretty good video man really enjoyed it. I do believe the bananas being taller and shading the wheat straw more so maybe caused it not to break down as much? Or for weeds to germinate?? . The Mulch was definitely exposed a lot more.
It's entirely possible - even likely - that the mulch being exposed in those cages for 4 months getting constantly hit by rain, sun, and freezing nights, totally destroyed 100% of the wheat seed. It's pretty common to order in compost and let the pile sit and age before spreading to ensure it's fully composted, so why not do that with straw? Buy the bales of straw early, let them sit out for 3-4 months in the rain and sun to degrade, then spread them. That's a way to ensure they won't contain viable seed and any herbicide leftover is inert.
I’ve been trying for 2 years. Nada. Nobody will come. I’ve had 3 people say they’ll be over, then never show. If you can get the mulch for free, use that. If you’re paying, straw is the best.
@@vonries I have had a standing $80 offer on Chip Drop for over 2 years. That’s the max allowed. If you aren’t convenient to the tree guys or you’re inside a subdivision, they often won’t bother and just go to someone else.
@@TheMillennialGardener You have a standing $80 offer and they wont come that's crazy. You have my sympathies. Have you tried calling any local tree trimmers directly? I have had mixed results with that, but who knows. Hopefully it wont cost you $80, and will only take a few tries and a little luck.
An inch of rain in the last 30 days would be nice. Currently at maybe .2" in the last 2 months. Going to be a pretty dry winter here. I've never been that interested in straw for a mulch as I can't quite guarantee that it hasn't been hit with a broadleaf herbicide before harvest (same with some types of manure that might have residual amounts that can affect your plants). I don't use herbicides and would rather not be accidentally bringing them onto the property if I can easily avoid it. I think some annual vegetables that might be particularly sensitive are tomatoes or peppers. I'd be much more on board if there was a way to know where you were getting your straw from locally. Now... I could just get more of my "native" areas of the yard growing with warm season grasses. With the little bit I have already, I might get a decent amount by the end of the season as the grasses will readily get to 3' tall (which leaves a quite a bit of straw below the seed heads). I think there are some specific plants that don't appreciate the amount of moisture that wood chips hold (strawberries come to mind, I'm trying to get a patch established in the front yard). For cost, I get a 12-15 cubic yard truck load of arborist woodchips for about $90 (delivery charge from a specific arborist, no chipdrop here). I'm not sure bales of straw could ever compete with that. FWIW, my perception of seed germination suppression has mostly been on two things: new seeds that blow onto the ground can't physically get to the soil and the temperatures in mulch are a bit less than uncovered soil. Keeping the mulch thick has been pretty useful for me. If I want some seedlings to come up, I'll pull the mulch back and drop a handful of seeds in under the mulch. They might not germinate quickly due to lower temperatures, but I have decent success in the long run. I mostly do this for native plants that germination might be tricky anyway (long cold stratification period, etc).
It's relative. Drought here can be more damaging than drought your way in theory, because we have a fire risk orders of magnitudes higher than out West since every spare inch of the unpaved ground is covered in brush and debris. When things get dry here, our fire weather risk goes through the roof. We have so much vegetation here that the demand on our water table is absolutely enormous, so drought on the East Coast can compound rather rapidly. I'm not complaining - we already exceeded our annual rainfall back in September, here, and I'm enjoying the non-stop clear blue skies. It's a nice break, and I know the rain will return soon. That's the reason why I love "drought" on the East Coast - there is really no such thing, because they're all so short-term. The problem with drought out West is that it can last for years. If you are concerned about herbicides, simply stack the straw up, hose it down and let it sit in the sun for 3-6 months. Nothing will degrade chemicals faster than non-stop UV rays. I think it's a *really* overstated problem, and one of those "problems" that only exists because fears on the internet beat it to death. But, of course, if you can get another source of mulch for free or more easily locally that's cheaper and works just as well, there's no reason to go through the trouble. I've been trying to get arborist woodchips for years, and nobody will come out my way. I'm too far off the beaten path in a subdivision, and nobody wants to come in, even for $80. I've tried.
@@TheMillennialGardener Ugh, I would have thought with access to chipdrop, it'd be easier for you. I don't have it great (about a year waitlist before I get chips), but at least I can get them and plan around the timeframe. I have space on my property to let a giant pile of woodchips age. You're totally right that I could do the same thing with straw, let it sit and age. The sun out here is brutal. After a season the top wood chips are really bleached (two seasons they're approaching drift wood color). 7000' elevation means there's noticeably less air above me than sea level (11.3 psia versus 14.7). We get a bit of fire danger with the reduced moisture, but it's usually year round except when we have good precipitation (usually monsoon). Winter isn't usually this dry and the winds might make for some noticeable fire conditions (red flag + excess dryness). While we don't have dense forests (I think the correct term for where I live is open woodland), the systemic drought stress on some types of trees can make them really susceptible to pests such as pine borers. Then all it takes is a camper that doesn't drench a fire and we have a couple thousand acre blaze in a day or two. Drought sucks everywhere, but yeah, we might tolerate it a little better. The native scrub brush can survive on only a few inches of rain per year. The 400 year old one-seed junipers in my back yard are some of the most drought tolerant trees around here, but some of that is from their ridiculous root systems (200+' tap roots). Native warm season grasses don't need any supplemental water. Aren't native plants cool? :D
I didn't realize you live in SE N.C. where I do, so this is going to really help me. I had to move from my last place and left my banana tree in the first year. Ordering another in about a week. You can get free mulch at some of the landfills also.
I use wheat straw as mulch as well, but to be fair to the woodchips, you had a really thick layer of straw on your banana beds. If you had the same amount of woodchips as you did straw, they would perform just as well at weed suppression as the straw did.
Don't use wheat straw if you are going for Organic Gardening!!! Unless you can get organic wheat straw, I hear it's loaded with glyphosate (Roundup), and I don't feel comfortable putting that on my organic garden. I wonder that's why you have no grass coming up. Instead, we use rice straw.
I've used pine straw in the past. My main issue with pine straw is I'm not a huge fan of the look, and it constantly blows away. It is good stuff, though, in terms of function. If I had a truck, I'd probably go get myself a few trash bags full. I have been collecting the falling needless my rear property and spreading where I can. I've gotten myself about 20 free gallons so far and I've been dumping them under my citrus trees.
Just be sure that it is really straw. I I used bales of supposed alfalfa straw in my garden one year. . NEVER AGAIN! It took 3 years to pull out all the alfalfa plants that sprang up. I will try to find some true straw but be careful! If it not really straw, be prepared to dig up all the wheat/alfalfa/whatever plants that will inevitably spring up..Also know the source of the hay and if persistent herbicides have been used on it. Never use straw or manure from animals that grazed on fields where persistent herbicides were used.
I plan to mulch my new raised strawberry bed with wheat or oat straw, not sure which it is but is certainly stalky like wheat. Have several bales left from last year I never used. So today after watching a video about cutting up the straw finer, I bought a Worx WG 509 blower / vacuum mulcher just today to chop the straw into finer mulch. Hope it works as well for me.
That sounds a little labor intensive, no? Have you ever considered dumping the straw and running a lawnmower over it with a bag on, then dumping the bag? I just did that with some old sweet potato vines, and it did a good job.
I have what’s called a grab and go bag of straw I got for my chickens and mulched my fall veg garden. I didn’t realize it was full of wheat seeds till it seeded like crazy. I’m curious to see what happens in the spring. I’ve been picking the grass for the chickens in the mean time. Otherwise I love it. It seems to allow great cover that has air in it, it’s so light with lots of life going on on top of the soil.
Throw your straw in with your chickens as they will clean all of the seed out for you. After a couple of weeks it is manured and ready to put on your garden.
My advantage and success is probably because the straw sits in those banana cages for 4 months and decomposes, getting blasted by rain, sun and freezing temps, before spreading. By the time I spread the straw in March or April, any leftover seed is long rotted. It is probably good practice to buy your straw bales and let them sit out in the elements for a few months to begin breaking down and ensure not just the seed is destroyed, but any trace herbicide has gone inert.
Atwoods in Oklahoma, 'square straw bale', $9.99. Probably still cheaper than bags of hardwood. I may try it this next spring, but I'll probably still supplement with alfalfa pellets as a fertilizer. Trying to fix the soil organically as well as moisture retention. Also, we all hear different rumors in gardening, but the one I heard is not to use 'hay' bales because there is a ton of seed in them and to make sure what you are purchasing is 'straw' bales, so maybe that's why you didn't get a bunch of seeds. If you are still having trouble with the prickly vine from the neighbors (almost a year later), something I have had luck with is Tordon RTU. Don't spray it on. It's pretty potent and you don't want it getting picked up by the wind. Instead, pour a tiny amount into a small container and use a thin paint brush to paint it on the leaves. I did that this year on a flowering quince that has been coming up underneath my cholla and killing it. I cut the quince down to 3 or 4 inches and delicately (VERY delicately) painted the stubs and so far it hasn't come back and the cholla is looking better.
I have used chopped organic wheat straw, it occasionally has a couple of seeds, but not a big deal. I piled it high trying to hill potatoes, which turned out to be not very effective (super healthy plants, but not a lot of tubers) but the amazing thing was for next year I now have a completely broken down pile of dirt. I'm in zone 5b, excited to grow in the much improved soil in the spring. My fall lettuce loved it too.
Straw is excellent as mulch, but as you said, the key is to apply it constantly. Every 6-12 months, placing a thick layer will provide best results. It takes years to build good soil, but in time, you'll have better and better results. Soil is like wine and cheese - it gets better with age when you do it right!
I respectfully beg to differ with you regarding the "myth" that the straw seeds and grows grass. It absolutely does based on use, observation, and grass growing in places that I don't want grass growing. It's NOT a "myth!" Maybe, just maybe, you happened to purchase some 'seedless' straw, thus grass growing in your garden was not an issue nor a problem. Good for you; one less garden chore!
I love the long format videos and the second channel for digest pieces, new sub here, just picked up gardening (have a head start w parents) three weeks ago and I’m going hard bro. Thank you so much for the helpful info, love from Baja
Of course it suppresses weeds. It's drenched in herbicides. But you can't escape that unfortunately. I think it does more good than harm in the long term. It's the choice of mulch or letting weeds run rampant because you should never allow your soil to just sit bare. It's the most damaging thing for soil
I now have 23 small truckloads of hardwood and pine mixed chips in my backyard delivered over the summer months. But, like you, I've heard the same issues with wheat straw so I opted for the chips. 🙄 Oh well looks like the chips will have to fill the bill for a while.
If I could get that for free, I would take every pile. Unfortunately, when you have to pay for it, you have to choose. I was always afraid of straw, but now that I’ve seen it in action, I’m in love. If you’re scared, let the bales sit out in the rain all winter to rot, then use it. That should kill the seeds. Maybe that’s why I’m so lucky?
@@TheMillennialGardener Well it is "free". But after you tip the (? tree trimmers) hauling crew a 10 here and a 20 there it does add up. And good luck with even getting them started - It took me 5 or 6 years since they brought it last time. You have to run down the foreman of the crew wherever they are working and request it - and even a 20 spot there might pay off ... well it's a game with them to see who has the best "incentive" for them. 😉
@@gitatit4046 I've been offering $80 on Chipdrop for over 2 years, as well as called some local companies. I've yet to be successful 😥 Location has a lot to do with it. I think I'm too far out of the city and too far out of the way, and they really don't like going to subdivisions. For 10-20 yards of wood chips, I'd gladly offer $100! Mulch is $40 a yard. A 10-yard delivery is easily over $400. Even $100 would be a steal.
@@TheMillennialGardener That's right. I don't mind the tipping since I know I'm getting a bargain in the end. BUT the hassle and frustration of trying to get it delivered is a different matter. I guess we do what we gotta do in the long run. I wish you luck on your end.
@@TheMillennialGardener - I had the terrible experience with straw bale bought in Home Depot: it was all full of seeds. I almost killed my strawberries with germinated weeds... With EZ-Straw my experience is strictly positive. No seeds in it. I'm using free truck deliveries of wood chips as well. And free horse manure from the nearby stable. Horse manure could be dangerous, though, if they used hay with herbicides...
I`m in Wilmington NC 5 yrs now MG so you now have me as a subscriber to learn about my new growing zone. Hard clay soil being converted to rich healthy living soil with lots of amenities... full all day long scorching summer sun along with trial and error. Added to raised garden beds 4x8 last month so we`ll see how things grow. Looking forward to your videos!
Why would you scrape a wood chip mulch layer to plant seed? why not incorporate it into the soil, and then plant your seed? Composted wood chips are a far superior soil amendment to straw.
The "myth" about seed germination comes from hay, not straw. That's why you're not supposed to use hay when seeding grass in your yard, but straw. Straw doesn't/shouldn't have any seed tops.
Pine straw has a lot of problems. It's very hard and does not work well at all in garden beds. Wheat straw, especially old wheat straw that has partially decayed, is a dream. Pine straw is fine to use around fruit trees if you don't mind the look (it's ugly), but it's horrific in the garden.
@@TheMillennialGardenerwhat looks the best or is the best? Pine straw sap is king when compared to everything else as far as benefits to your soil and plants. Pine Straw is also superior preventing weeds and retaining moisture, given the fact that just about anything can be used as a mulch as long as it's put down thick enough. Anyway, the research was done at the botanical gardens at LSU.
Slimy, wet, decaying wheat straw, or any kind of straw, can become a super magnet for SLUGS. I tried growing potatoes in hay, and slugs ate them all up.
Perhaps someone can correct me…but I tried straw as a mulch in my nicely manicured raised, weed free garden beds. Atheistically it looked nice, was keeping the moisture in the soil, a bale a straw was relatively cheap,…etc. Within one week, the seeds within the straw bales began germinating. I began seeing straw grass popping up through the straw mulch. Point is…if you don’t want to be weeding wheat straw in your garden you may want to consider a different mulching material.
When you buy fresh straw bales, it's a good idea to stack them up and let them sit in the sun and rain for 1-2 months before use. Let the straw get washed from rain and baked in the sun so any residual herbicides get washed off and burnt off by the sun and any seeds get destroyed.
excellent video, have bookmarked it for future reference. one note tho, at 3:27 I believe you mispoke. UV rays do not cause the evaporation, rather it's Infrared rays which agitate and 'heat' the water molecules, changing them to vapor. : )
Thank you again for another great video! Are you finding that straw mulch is still your go to, even with the added issue of the recent added complexity of strong herbicides like Grazon & others being used in US grain fields? I found this when using store bought manure compost, it caused my plants to die & literally sterilized the areas of my soil for at least 2 years that I used it on. I'm hoping you're still having great success with wheat straw so that I can do that too! :)
Do you have AJW's out there? Asian Jumping Worms? Some areas do some don't. I won't use free mulch drop. I prefer bags because I solarize them on my hot blacktop in the bags for a week. Kills any cocoons. Once you get the AJW's on your land they can devastate your soil.
Making fertile soil is the goal. Mature soil is up to 70% fungal. You need wood particles in your soil. Traditional deep bed approach is to lay logs down under the bed , then mulch and green layers like lasagna. Collected Microbes , mature composts, rich soil are all brought to the bed. You can look up knf deep bed .
The other reason no weed/grass seeds grew in the straw mulch - It's still laden with the insecticides and herbicides used in wheat farming. You inoculated your beds with herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides used on the commercial farm.
Wheat straw is different from hay. Hay is what most people think of when you mention straw. The difference is Wheat straw is stripped of the seed or Wheat where as hay is just straight cut from the field and bailed seed and all.
Great info, as usual, and timely. I was just researching mulch since I've had to move to another state (KY). I found some concern that wheat straw causes a mold problem due to moisture retention and the way it compacts. And what do you think about the idea that some mulches can change the soil PH?
Any mulch is going to cause some fungal growth, but it's generally beneficial. I have been stuffing my bananas for a couple seasons with straw, and I've never had a problem. I'm very impressed by it. I think mulches changing soil pH is largely overstated, since most things are fairly neutral. Wheat straw isn't going to affect pH much. Neither will pine straw. Pine bark may lower pH some, but you need to constantly reapply it to keep the effect going. Hardwood bark is mildly alkaline, but again, you need to constantly reply to keep the effect going. Most people afraid of soil pH issues work hard to get arborist woodchips since they're often a hugely diverse blend that "balances out." In short, most readily available mulches won't affect soil pH enough that most plants will not tolerate it.
@@TheMillennialGardener Pine straw??? Hooray! I got a yard full! Can I add the banana peels and egg shells to those? Thank you so much for this discussion!!!
Noticed u have on ur fence and on plants to the right of ur banana plants..a greeness growth(moss?)..curious if u will let that continue to spread or u curtail it..and if so..what would u use on it to get rid of it?..(watching ur videos has made me excited to start gardening again after 15yrs..but remembering that greeness on my wood and some plants back then..and had to replace all the wood..wondering if there's new products to curb that..)..ty!...
at 15.20 you are looking at mulch under your bananas - they are water pumps so of course its dry under them - they just love water and pump it right out of the ground ......
You said theres only ONE drawback but I read so much about mulches in the past week and the reason I'm afraid to use organic mulch is b/c it holds moisture which is great for everything you mentioned, except b/c of that wonderful moisture, underneath it is a great place for insects and since that's a food source for rodents ( mice & rats ) it attracts them .. Also its a cool moist place underneath the mulch for the mice to make they're nests for the hundreds of babies they will be giving birth to all summer .. Since I'm so terrified of attracting these types of rodends, I'm too worried now to you use it .. I did though give your vid a 👍 as I did enjoy it and can see you on w what you're doing in the garden .. Looking forward to watching more and if you read this comment and you know about keeping insects such as termites and rodents such as mice/rats away, please make a video on that .. Rats were never a problem here in Ontario Canada but they sure are now. 😟
I never toss corn husks. they are disease free and great n under plants. Wood chips and wood mulch doesn't add nitrogen at all. Dude. You also need to pierce your soil often with a fork. Dandelion is a telltale sign your soil is compressed. Keep the soil moving just enough. Helps nutrients to penetrate the hard surface. Honestly I can't see how you succeed. Good talker though. Thumbs up.
That’s what I’ve always used, but if you’re paying for it and you have an option, I really feel the straw is better. Hardwood often costs more if you’re paying for it.
I also use barley straw for my plants with the occasional barely that pops up..Quick question do you attract banana spiders? since you have been growing them.Great video very informative..
The rubber tire mulch for walkway was the worst decision I ever made. Husband convinced me this would be so good. Never buy again.. it just spread's all over the yard. also the droped leaves are hard to pet up from the darn chopped tires.
Your clear explanation and full coverage of your topic was excellent! Then you even reviewed everything. Great job! I appreciate a talk that is clear and understandable without unnecessary repetition and words like “um”. I’m subscribing. 🙂
As far as seeing grass sprouting in the straw, its mostly just whatever grain the straw came from. It pulls easy and I just lay it back down as green manure..
Yep, that's true. For me, I never had to pull a single blade. I had zero germination. That being said, one of the biggest sources of "weeds" in my garden are volunteer tomato and pepper plants! It can get pretty annoying come July 😂
I will tell you from experience that using “Hay” in my garden bed was a huge mistake. I tried the Ruth stout method, and that did not work well for me. The hay brought quack grass into my garden and now it’s a huge problem. Maybe “straw” would be ok because hopefully it doesn’t have invasive grass seeds in it, but it’s still a risk imo. Wood chips are the best for me. Just think twice before using straw and do yourself a favor and stay away from hay as mulch.
I've heard a lot of horror stories about hay that don't seem to translate to wheat straw. Hay is also a lot more expensive than straw, so that's a win-win. I hear for hay, you have to let it sit out for 6+ months to rot. Once it rots and begins to decay, it's suitable for use, because all the weed seeds are dead. That probably isn't a bad idea with the straw, either. Let the bales sit out in the rain and sun for a couple months to begin the decomposition process to ensure the seeds die, and ensure any pesticides wash away and/or become inert.
@@TheMillennialGardener The rhizome grass the hay brought is really aggressive. I have tried to let hay rot down and then use it, but the problem is that the sides of the bales do not rot like the center. The only way around that is to basically compost it and turn it. I bet straw is better, but man, it still scares me lol. Wood chips are the only “safe” mulch use now.
You don’t discuss the importance of acquiring wheat straw that has not been treated with grazon or other weed killing chemicals that will remain in the soil that you are using the straw on and kill or damage the crops that you are attempting to grow and that makes this information TOXIC…
I like straw, but I know a couple who put it on their watermelon container patch. When the vines grew over the mulch, they all died. It turned out that their was roundup used to harvest the wheat, leaving a residue on the straw. So, I'm afraid of it now...they put roundup on everything.
Where did you get your wheat straw from? I just saw a vid about grazon being on hay that the animals ate, then the farmer took their manure and put it in the soil, and the plants died from the grazon that was used to grow the hay that the goats and cows ate, which left the traces in the manure, which contaminated the soil and no plants survived. Some herbicides can be used on straw. What are your findings please? Thanks.
the true boogeyman with strawmulch is persistent herbicide , not everyone uses it i know but theres always that possibility , although i dont live in an area where those are used i used straw mulch one season and it was extremely economical , here lawn care is literally just mowing once a week or 2 depending on rainfall so grass clippings are extremely safe and ive just been mulching with lawn clippings since , breaks down faster than the straw in our wet months but its so abundant its not a problem
Can you use saw dust in a garden? I have a saw mill I use for sawing pine trees into lumber. And of course there are two by products. The outer pieces of the trunk with bark and of course there is lots of saw dust. So far I have been trying to compost the saw dust but I was wonder if it could be used in the garden?
Good content. I use wood chip for pathways between beds. I used sugar cane mulch in the past but stopped due to the chemical fertilisers and pesticides used by commercial farmers. I now cut my own Rhodes grass. Grass clippings and leaves. I am now purposely growing legume shrubs to go in the mix. I pile it for a few weeks then use it as mulch. When I use wood chip I put cardboard down first. I use cardboard around all my trees now. I cover it with some compost and grasses, as that diminishes I top up with woodchip. Long winded but I'm not buying mulches so it gives me time. BTW I noticed your figs. Not many leaves. I recently got a fig. The leaves on my fig vanish almost as soon as they grow. They curled. Had rust and got eaten. The fig kept growing though, producing fruit. End of Winter here now ( zone 10 ) so temps down to single figure Celsius. No Fruit, but producing new leaves.
wheat straw mulch that we get have way to many wheat seeds, that ultimately sprout and grown a wheat crop!😡 We pick up leaves and they are double chopped so make great mulch for the next year. Very few weed seeds too!
I used some wheat straw and ended up with the straw mulch growing like grass. Luckily it was in the walkway so just laying down weed cloth to try and kill it off.
You have to be really careful where you get the wheat straw. It is harvested by using an herbicide to ripen all the wheat at the same time for more efficient harvesting. It can be persistent.
Thank you for sharing this information. Do you know what pesticide is typically used? Why does the wheat have to be the same "doneness" for harvesting ease? Is it worth toxifying the water and the ground and the plant, and, whatever eats the wheat?
@@72planes I will have to look that information up, but I don't think it's glyphosate. Though it's possible if the wheat is gmo glyphosate was used on the crop during growth. There is a youTube channel "David the Good", he has a short video that gives the name of the herbicide "Grazon" , its only about 3 1/2 minutes, But he explains it too. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GeM74jDAwIQ.html
If you know someone who owns or ru s a tree cutting business you can also give them a place to dump their truckload of wood chips for free to them and just let it sit and compost down for a year or 2 if you ha e the space on your property. I took down a maple tree last summer and rented a stump grinder. I piled up all the grinding from the stump and have been using it this year as mulc for my vegetables and my new apple trees.
