More Than a Weed-Barrier, It’s a System

Class Science Trip

Yup, we sell a weed barrier. But not just any weed barrier. We believe we have the best weed barrier on the market. Understandably, that’s our biggest selling point. We make no bones about it. We don’t know of any product that can touch ours when it comes to blocking weeds. Do you? (Okay, maybe straw – that’s my opinion.) Seriously, if you know of another product that can match ours, please let us know. (It means we have competition.)

What people don’t know is what’s really behind our weed barrier is actually a system for growing vegetables. Yup, once you try Garden Mats, you’ll see. You’ll see why Master Gardeners, organic gardeners, and small commercial growers are our largest customer groups all over the U.S.

We challenge you to do an experiment. Plant a 4’ X 6’ area without Garden Mats. Then right next to that plant an area with a 4’ X 6’ Garden Mat. If you do not experience a marked difference, we’ll give you your money back.

When I started Garden Mats I concentrated on the weed barrier properties of every material on the planet, from straw mulch (the only thing better than Garden Mats in my opinion) to bio-degradable material to geo-textiles.   What I learned was fascinating, but I won’t bore you with the details. For the first two years I was in business I bought standard black commercial landscape fabric and I made mats for my own gardens. When friends, family and neighbors saw them, they wanted them too. I cut the material and made all the holes by hand back then.   But I was not totally satisfied with the material. It was not as heavy as ours, and because it was black it attracted a little too much heat.  So, after a couple of years I finally found a manufacturer that would make the material I wanted to spec. And now our material is green and reflects the right amount of heat.

The other thing I did the first two years is research every planting guide and gardening book I could get my hands on from the 1800’s to today. I still can’t resist an old gardening encyclopedia at a yard sale to see the planting distances for each variety of vegetable. Once I had all that information under my belt, I started to map out the most common patterns on graph paper. What I was after was an intensive approach that would enable even a small plot to produce an abundance of vegetables. That’s how I came up with the eight standard patterns. They’ll accommodate every vegetable we know of except asparagus (but I’m working on that!). As you can imagine, we also do many other custom patterns, especially for commercial growers who plant vegetables, flowers, fruits, and trees.

The inspiration for overall design approach came from a 1986 trip I made to Israel. There I saw the most incredible vegetables grown in the world right in the desert. At the time the Israeli’s were known to be one of the most intensive gardening cultures in the world. And let me tell you, the fresh roasted eggplant I had there was the most heavenly food on the planet.

So, as I was making holes in fabric those first two years, I soon realized that I was developing an intensive gardening system that could transform the way people grow vegetables.

What you see today is a weed barrier system that does all the measuring, all the spacing, and provides the perfect mulch a garden needs. And you do as little as possible. That’s why the Garden Mats system is the best.