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37 Comments
Looking at your wire bed tops and mildly kicking myself 😉 I keep overthinking and consequently over-engineering the tops for my air prune beds. Just the bottom frame to match the bed and let the wire hold its own shape above.
is this a new site? looks like a new space you're working
Had to laugh you made this about minimal work with no tools while a tractor droned in the background! 😂
Heavy mulch is a great tool and glad you mentioned how it may not be one and done. Saw some questions on grass seed. Using a rake to disrupt beginning sprouts is simple quick and effective. Not to mention it all started with a full compliment of grass. Great video! Glad your trees are recovering 👍
Well done.
Great work. I love the one hand watering, one weeding style. Hey, just my experience with that netting from the round bale. I used them for groeing cucumbers up it but one day I found a hedgehog fully entangled in one. Luckily managed to free them after hours of cutting the eyes ofr the net. I don't use them anymore just shoving them in my plastic bricks.
I imagine you'd get a lot of mice calling all these rows of hay their new home? Depending on where you do something like this (say around a garden), might they be potentially quite destructive?
BTW, this channel is spectacular. Thank you for all the great content.
I like the "learning not to worry about" statement of potential weed/grass growth. I can relate to that. T
Snobby, but basically it’d be good to call Pesticides “Hazardous Chemicals”. Making chemicals (the very thing we are made of) scary is how you get people up in arms about Dihydrogen monoxide…
(Not that I’m some lover of Agent Orange etc, but modern pesticides are a tool in a toolbox, and hazards can be managed, but again between no-till methods, cover crops, and saturated steam weeding I don’t see too much of a place for them)
I’m rambling but basically i just think that’s a thing to be cognizant about, do with that what you may.
Excited to see how all this turns out, all sorts of stuff happening, just have to wait for things to grow now!
The “pile of stuff” method is neat!, especially with how it ties into low/no-till methods.
The main concern i have is sourcing the cover material, and if that “biomines” minerals from other areas long term.
All a question of scale i guess.
An Open Source Baler and Bale Chopper would be an amazing addition to the Lifetrac.
Imagine if you had one of those “sprayer” chippers, could get this done in minutes!
Granted if it works, it works, and time spent can be cheap compared to hardware depending on what you are doing!
Great video, and thanks again for introducing me to air prune beds. I’m building one now to be ready for propagating wild black cherry trees after the fall harvest. Looking forward to doing some native nursery work with this type of system very soon.
Its the plants that survived a hard freeze that tend to be the strongest genetics👍👍
The problem with round bales is the weight of the bale. Its not easy to move.
We buy the core of a round bale every now and then from a local farmer. It is still really heavy to move.
$25 for a round bale is more than what you usually pay? That is $55 minimum here.
Interesting; thank you so much for sharing. Would you also consider this method around annual beds, given the likely slug habitat? Also, would you consider fresh meadow clippings? I have one or two areas of an orchard where we manage the ground as a meadow. Even after the trees are mulched we still have a lot of material left over, but no room to store it. I wonder if large green meadow clippings would be similarly effective in improving the ground while holding back pernicious weeds like nettles and buttercups in clay?
Hi guy’s great way to stop those pesky weeds.👍🏻🤠💗🙏
I like it! Great idea. Was looking for an option like this that didn't require a permanent landscaping choice
That "hay" is brown mulch not real hay or you would have grass growing from it. Real hay is green looking and rich…
WOW 😳 $25 for a Round Bale!!! we're paying $70 each to feed our goats!
GROW THE WEEDS YOU WANT!! I pree seed my beds with thick layers or radish, arugula or even cheap chia seeds. let it establish and pluck out section and put purposeful plants then there's never weeds because you proceeded and when those bolts and go to seed it recedes itself eventually you never have weeds because the weeds that are growing or things you want
I just started doing this in my garden with straw and wood chips. So much easier and faster than just pulling weeds by hand!
Wow thar airpruning box seemed DRY ! It’s geat to show the big weeds can be nursing and protecting the sprouting trees
Looks like a great opportunity to get winecaps involved, as well!
Sean is watering. Juan is weeding. Awesome Team!
$20 – $30 per vale here also……the surplus of hay in northern NY state is phenomenal
What types of grass do you work with
I have kikuyu and have found it exhausting to try and remove without chemicals
Do you have a runner grass? Because if I did this it would just end up growing through it which sucks.
NO PLASTIC/NO CHEMICALS I LIKE THAT / DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU
It sure looks easier than hauling wood chips with the wheelbarrow!
We did a very similar thing just yesterday. While we didn't have a bale, we first put down leaf mulch we collected last autumn, and then on top of that we put old dried out grass clippings. Fantastic for walking on barefoot. I do see a comment talking about mice, which was something I thought of while doing it. The cats will be happy, but I am mildly concerned about voles in the winter time eating the bark of the trees in this area as well. To remedy that, I think I am going to put wood chips around just the trees, and use the protectors. Time will tell. Great video, Sean. Thanks!
Id appreciate it if you made a video about how you found hay that's free of graz-on persistent herbicide. Thanks!
I got some old hay for mulching this year, it works great and goes much further than expected! The main hunk has sat long enough i got ants in it, lol!
Would you cut off the dead part on top of the seedlings that were frozen?
My lawn is comprised of Bermuda grass and field bindweed, and both have growth through years of 12-18in wood chips repeatedly. Can you offer a perspective for this situation?
Get poultry netting and send in the chickens! Then once they've had their fill go ahead and roll out the bale
Finding hay that cheap is half the battle.
$25 per! Holy straw! That is a wicked deal!