Back to Eden Gardening

[flowerbug]

before i use wood chips on a garden i use them other places first as a mulch for several years and then when they've partially or mostly turned into humus then they get used in a garden.

i really wish instead of so much crushed limestone here that we had our pathways done with woodchips instead. every so often i pick a pathway to renovate because of all the dirt and debris that gets blown or washed in and eventually it starts supporting more weed growth than i'd like so it is worth the effort to scrape the rocks back up and clean it out again.

with woodchips instead you can either top it all back off and let it go for a few more years or scrape the top stuff back and harvest garden goodies.

they are also a bit more gentle on the feet than rocks.

the only real downside for wood chips is that the flash floods can move them around. i'm hoping i've got that taken care of now... *ahem*

 

[Beekissed]

Henless, I've found it most difficult to source chips and it's growing more and more so. I'm thinking of still going with the heavy mulch gardening, as we sold our tiller, but I'm thinking of transitioning to a more easily sourced material~hay.

I can get hay any time of the year and I can get it in bulk~round bales~or in bales, from which I can easily place flakes of it on top of bare spots, around the base of plants, on top of weeds, etc. We've used mulch hay around the base of the crops for years before using the wood chips and always loved it, but have never done an entire garden in hay before, so this will be an experiment.

Hay can make some black gold real quick and in a hurry. For example, I had a small stack of square bales up on a piece of plywood, the plywood was up on large stones with at least 6 in of clearance from the ground, then the hay bales were double tarped. Moisture got into that small stack anyway but the most surprising thing to find was where the hay bales sat on the plywood...a 2 in thick layer of black soil/compost that had to be scraped off that wood!

That stack was placed there in the spring and uncovered a few weeks ago, so not long to make soil when not even in contact with the ground. I'm thinking it will make me some lovely topsoil when used in the garden full time. It's easily sourced, easily spread, easily transported, easily stored when one doesn't have to worry if it gets wet or not but I can always build a hoop structure for storing it if need be. It can be found pretty cheap and sometimes for free.

 

[ninnymary]

I've come to the conclusion that not 1 method works for everyone everywhere. I've noticed by watching the recent bte vids by L2survive, that not everything is as easy as it seems. I remember Paul talking about his orchard had weeds in it taller than his trees. He had people come in and weed it for him then brought in a bunch of chips. In another one someone was asking Paul how he fertilized the pasture that had sheep in it. He said every fall, he would bring in chips to cover it about 2" deep. The next year that grass would grow green and tall.

He actually doesn't use chips anymore. He just uses the compost from his chicken run to cover his garden. There's a man in England, Charles Downing, that uses compost as his cover to prevent weeds. Personally, I find the chips hard for me to use. Even raking them back so I can plant, I would still get chips down in the hole.

Gotta run pick up granddaughter from school. I'll post more later.

This BTE information is interesting. I wonder why Paul gave up on chips? Anyone know?

I'm going to check out those videos from L2survive.

Mary

 

[Beekissed]

This BTE information is interesting. I wonder why Paul gave up on chips? Anyone know?

I'm going to check out those videos from L2survive.

Mary

Not sure, but I'd heard the same thing. He'll not produce enough compost in his chicken pen to cover that garden and orchard and keep out the weeds, so it will be interesting to see how he proceeds.

As for me, the decision to use hay is an easy one and one I should have made long ago.

 

[baymule]

Wood chips are working pretty good for me in the places I piled them deep. I have piles of chips but they were too green to use for the spring 2017 garden, but they are nicely composted now. We got a lot of boxes to lay down and cover with chips too.

 

[henless]

I had trouble getting wood chips myself. I got a total of 2 loads, and never heard from anyone again. That is why I used leaves & pine straw for most of my mulching.

Do you use hay or straw? If hay, do you have trouble with any of the seeds sprouting? I had never heard of BTE until you mentioned it on BYC. While looking it up, I ran across some articles about Ruth Stout. She used hay for her mulching many years before Paul used chips. I watched an old video of her planting potatoes one time. She has a very unique way of gardening. I enjoyed watching it.

Are you going to cover the whole garden and let it sit over winter or just mulch around your plantings in the spring? I think hay would be much easier to use. Even if it doesn't retain water like the chips, it should really help keep the soil from drying out between rains or watering. I hope it works really well for you Bee. I know you've been trying so hard to get the bte to work.

This BTE information is interesting. I wonder why Paul gave up on chips? Anyone know?

I'm going to check out those videos from L2survive.

Mary

If I remember right Mary, there were a couple of reasons. One is because his gardens just don't need it anymore since he has been using the chips for years. The soil has built up, so he just uses the chicken compost as needed for his garden. He still uses chips in his orchard and different areas around his house, but in his actual garden, it just the chicken compost.

The other is because he is not physically able to move the chips like he used to. It's getting harder for him to walk due to the agent orange poisoning he got in Vietnam.


My new beds will soon be in the building stage. I will be getting a couple of pallets of blocks from Lowes next week. Hopefully, we can start building them over the Thanksgiving holidays. My next problem will be filling them up. We are going to get a couple loads of topsoil from my DH's work, so that will help. But I'm also thinking about adding stuff to the bottom of the beds so we don't have to use so much soil.

I'm thinking about doing a lasagna type layering in the beds, at least in the lower part. I have cardboard, leaves, compost and the soil. Not much grass to cut to put on it now. I thought about some hay, but don't know if the seeds would be a problem. If I use hay, it would be coastal bermuda or bahia. Both are usually loaded with seeds in the bales, so I really doubt they would be a good choice.

I did get a new toy this weekend. We got a lawn sweeper. It is so cool! I didn't have my phone on my to take a pic of the loads we got up, but I'll take one tomorrow. We had planned on getting a bagger for our lawn mower. We bought the mower the first part of the year. Our old one was just worn smooth out. When we went to order one, the only bagger that would fight our mower, had been discontinued. I almost cried. I've wanted a bagging mower for years. The sweeper works good, it just doesn't chop up the leaves. If you want them chopped, you would have to mow, then go back and pick them up. It's still much faster than raking.

 

[Beekissed]

Henless, I've never noticed any increase in weeds with the use of mulch hay. From everything I'm researching on where folks are using it like Ruth Stout did, it retains the moisture much like the chips do and weeds are less prevalent than in the wood chips.

It will definitely be less work than the chips. I always chuckle when I see vids on the BTE gardens where they have titles like "no work gardening". Been gardening most of my life and never worked as hard at it as I have done with the wood chips...and for less return, I might add.

I did potatoes in CP rings around the apple tree saplings this year and they were just shoved down into the layers of leaves, hay and chicken compost. Easiest planting and harvesting of spuds in my life, with a GREAT return for the amount of taters planted, very few small spuds, some very large for Red Pontiacs. The dogs and chickens harvested two of the rings for me where the best plants had been, so I only got half the crop....but I only planted about 4 lbs of seed potatoes to get the whole crop.

This is the potatoes from the two most shallow rings... around 40-50# of spuds. I do believe I would have had 100# return on that 4 lbs if I had gotten the whole crop.

 

[flowerbug]

nice lookin' spuds there!

 

[ninnymary]

That is very impressive Bee. Can you explain how you planted them?

Thanks
Mary

 

[Beekissed]

That is very impressive Bee. Can you explain how you planted them?

Thanks
Mary

Just chose the smallest seed potatoes I could find in the organic seed spuds in the bin, planted them whole about 8-12 in apart throughout the compost rings. The rings had been composting down for a few years and all winter long and were comprised of wood chips at the bottom, old hay, mostly leaves, some chicken compost in light layers here and there.

Just shoved them down into that mix until I hit bottom and topped off the rings as well I could when the taters came up through that mix. Just topped them with old hay and leaves, a little sprinkle of chicken compost in there.

I learned a few years back to not plant into a lot of manure, however well it seemed composted, because it gave the spuds scab and I didn't get a very good crop at all, so maybe that was all too rich. Got amazingly huge vine growth but no bottoms to speak of.