Key fact about Fungi.. My Talk with Paul G. from Back to Eden Organic Gardening Method 101 with wood chips. Also No till vegetable garden for beginners.
Link to L2Survive :https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBI97edYBxQr-KfWkmk86QQ
VIDEO: My Talk with Paul G. from Back to Eden Gardening Method with wood chips
Key fact about Fungi.. My Talk with Paul G. from Back to Eden Organic Gardening Method 101 with wood chips. Also No till vegetable garden for beginners.
This was a great interview and great explanation. Have a marvellous day
thanks to you, I've learned a little about foodweb in the soil and the fungi, you r a great teacher keep up the good work!
woodchips have been a godsend for my CA garden, without it there would be no plants (other than weeds) bc the soil dries out so badly without its "wood roof" to trap moisture. Last summer I planted fruit & ornamental trees on one side of my 1/3 acre backyard leaving the other side clear for next years project…large veggie beds.
I hesitate to plant more trees bc I still worry about 1) food crops not getting enuf sun due to tree canopies overhead casting shade and 2) tree roots taking over the soil making it difficult to even dig a hole without hitting a massive root.
I keep thinking about the enormous amount of ground-up trees required every year or two, to have a wood-chip mulch on the surface. I want to warn Paul not to broadcast his methods over the internet, or it might get popular, and then he'll have to pay $$ for that mulch! I suspect that your cover-crop methods are the better example for home gardeners, because a one-time wood-chip/leaf mulch (limited resources), transitions into a free living mulch that will feed the soil for years.
Another point about redwoods (including sequoia) trees is that their roots will go 100 yards to find water. So the coverage of roots in the soil is greater than say a fruit tree.
Hi Mark, I understand that living roots are needed to provide the living food web for plants to grow however you are using a live cover crop and Paul has wood chips as cover.
the living cover crop will need water to survive which in dry conditions is completing with my crops, wood chips provide cover to keep moisture in the ground but you cant have both so which is best? how do you deal with dry periods when you are using a cover crop to provide the living root?
Also the slow breakdown of woodchips helps to feed the plants with nutrients, which is an added benefit.
Many thanks and learning a lot about soil.
Phil.
going through comments is a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for sharing insights with Paul, most of people including myself thought that woodchips is the only solution but never knew the role of living roots and fungus playing in healthy soil.
I had the pleasure of visiting Paul's garden. I learned a lot. It's something you really need to see to believe.
Great illustration! It will be interesting to see if the Winter Rye will make a difference this year in my garden.
Thank you Mark, I love Paul's videos by L2Survive, and all the information from him. Once again Mark thank you. Maybe one day I will get to visit both your farms.
Frank
Thanks for another great video. I have a couple questions. I started my own B2E garden this spring after finding yours, and Paul Gauschis videos. I live in Alamogordo, NM. What is the fungus in the wood mulch? My wood mulch are various sizes. Some are already breaking down, others look like they'll take a long time to break down. I have pretty bad soil and even though I have added tons of organic matter over the last 10 years to my soil it still doesn't want to really grow anything. This year after watering every layer I added my garden is wanting to actually grow. While digging just in the spots I was doing transplants in the soil was moist. Not dry like ut usually is. We have a sandy clay soil, with caliche thrown in. It's amazing what my soil looks like, just from adding wood mulch mainly. Before I would put mamure, compost, and peat moss till it, put my water lines in then plant. I wish I would have known about this method before. I can't really get ahold of leaves because the wind takes them during the spring and fall. We only get about 13 inches anual rain in a good year and we haven't had that in a while so I have to rely on well water. My garden is in full high U/V sun all day, and exposed to nasty spring and fall winds. All of my plants are doing really well. I added some micorrhizal fungi spores to the garden also. I've found your videos very informative to my gardening ideas.
ok, let's say I have my yard as i like it already. Can I introduce Mycorrhizal Fungi myself to increase health and growth ?
4:20 where did you learn that the fungi dies every 30 days?
Thank You so much for this ! I got such a clear understanding of the fungi and its purpose. Subscribed and am looking forward to your other Organic Growing videos 🙂
Thank you. Very enlightening!!!
Are there particular kinds of trees that are good at fostering a fungi community? I know you have posted a list in another comment of plants that are or are not Mycorrhizal, I'm just wondering out of the ones that are, are they all pretty much the same? Love your vids, learning so much, thank you.
Hi Mark,
Is grapevine roots qualifi as mycchorizhal fungi maker ?
Thanks
Mycorrhiza spores can lay dormant in the soil for years. And when plant roots grow next to the spores, the spores germinate, inoculate the plants and it then forms the symbiotic relationship with it. I've been following Paul for years. IMHO The real essential key to his vegetable gardens are not the spores or the wood chips, but rather the tons of chicken fertilizer he puts on them every year. Most people miss that.
Please excuse my ignorance, but why does the majority of vegetables you grow in wood chips not build the soil with their roots anyway? I can understand if you have wood chips with nothing planted, that the best you can hope for is that as it turns to compost it seeps into the soil and enriches is that way. Surely though, if you are planting your normal veggies in your wood chips, that will then help to build soil?
Hi Mark, nice video and instructions. All the good biology here must build on solid ground cover foundation. Whatever ground cover anyone preferred no problem, but wood chip is probably the easiest to achieve. No maintenance ever needed for wood chip. Starting with good foundation ground cover, I think these nice biology will happen naturally. I don't understand why people spend so much money to buy mycorrhiza in bags? without good foundation, fungi will die. If you have good root system, soil stays moist, the exudate from roots will sustain good fungi and support more population and life cycle. Fugi die and grow every moment. 90 days rule don't seem to apply if foundation is not there.
Thanks Mark for the excellent video ! I have tons of woodchips and thought that all that stringy white growth was Mycorrhizi
but now know its Calcium Oxalate I believe you said. I have lots of living roots in the ground as I am feeding the soil first then feeding my fruit trees and garden vegetables. Always look forward to your videos thanks again !
does Paul speak about the role of his trees in his garden in any of his videos voluntarily or does he neglects to mention their role all the time? If feels like in that (very short) phone conversation you had to push him to answer "Paul, would you admit there is something more than just no-till woodchips for ground cover and nutrient supply about your Back to Eden garden, but there are also trees that play important role"? 🙂
Wow! I just put down 8-12 inches of wood chips all over my property hoping it would break down some by next spring (we have minimal rain here). I do have fruit trees lining my small backyard but it seems like I need to start planting my vegetable garden in the clay dirt to get the fungi growing and help the wood chips break down. I had no idea. Thanks for the information.
Hii. Has Paul plant rice in his garden? Am waiting for the video of rice growing on wood chips like wasobi
Thanks to you Mark and with your continuous help l am improving my gardening skills….God Bless you and your family.
Mark,.this method of gardening is new to me. I lived in farm country for 10 years and had a wonderful garden every year. I mimicked the farmers around me because I figured they new best how to manage the soil.thats how they made their living. I moved to an area with lots of sand, wanting a nice garden I purchased 36yards of topsoil from a farmer who retired and was stripping his land of soil for retirement $. I have lived here for 20 years and garden has gone down hill. I found Paul's channel and was amazed by what he was doing. More searching brought me to your channel. I subscribed after first video. Your such a great teacher, where Paul only talked about was covering the soil. Nothing about a living root or micorrizal fungi. It seems paul was making a food forest with fruit trees(the living root). I'm confused, did Paul unkowningly create the complete soil food web?
Mark thank you so much for this and every video you take the time to produce .Mark would you please comment any specific perennial cover crops you could recommend for raised bed gardening ? Thanks !
So hum… How do sand&silt&clay go up the composted wood chips to build soil close to the surface anyway? Water saturation and absence of clay both have to be avoided, after all. That plants get their nutrients without clay, maybe I can understand, if really it all comes from the shrooms, but without silt or sand that prevents water saturation? That sounds like a far stretch to me. Would you please care to explain?
Thank you.