I’m very excited to share this composting concept that was inspired after visiting Liz Zorab a few years ago. One of the biggest challenges small gardens face is space to make compost, but you can turn your pathways into very effective compost makers and provide enough material for you to mulch your beds and pots provided you don’t mind a slight loss of aesthetic! I really hope you take some inspiration from this and that you can adapt it to your own growing space to save space and money and help you grow more food in your vegetable garden.
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Intro – 0:00
Liz Zorab – 0:40
Wood Chip / Compost Hybrid – 1:50
Compost Pathways – 2:28
Protect Wooden Beds – 2:41
Cardboard Base – 3:04
Tips for hard ground – 3:55
Formula for volume of compost per area – 4:12
2x beds mulched from a single path – 5:06
First Layer – 6:01
Wood chip – 6:43
Adding compost materials – 6:59
Inoculate with Biology – 7:39
Speed up the process – 7:58
Maintenance – 8:33
Your Challenge – 9:06
#composting #gardenideas #permaculture
I love this… have been considering a change to wood chip paths…. What would you suggest to do for lining if covering a gravel drive way turned raised bed /no dig garden?
Love it ! What a fabulous idea I’m going to start one tomorrow! Love your new direction thank you
I've done this for a few years it really works
Love this! 🙂 You're full of amazing ideas Huw 🙂 thank you so much for sharing them 🙂
Such a great idea! My garden isn’t geometric like yours, though. AND it’s on a hillside, not steep but I could possibly slide with the cardboard, unexpectedly.
That's exactly my plan from watching that Liz Zorab video! I got a little fed up maintaining my grass around my raised beds the past two years so woodchip it is. I'm quite excited about it becoming compost to throw into my beds once broken down!
I can see a nice artichoke plant..wow.
I have previously used fresh woodchip only in the paths and scrape it up at the end of season – it worked well. Last spring I added Winecap mushroom mycelium (stropharia rugoso annulata) in the paths with the woodchip to ensure even quicker breakdown and to get a food crop from it! The first mushroom harvest today filled a 10L bucket, full! An enjoyable process but not good for people who enjoy turning compost to get a look at how it’s going.
I will start a composting pathway tomorrow on my allotment plot. It’s a hard pathway and paving slab raised beds, so we’ll see how it goes.
Liz is awesome and is a great inspiration. Love the stacking of functions in pathways!
Fantastic idea and very much what nature does.
I don't have pathways but I do have patches of bare dirt. One wet year when weed meadows sprung up, after everything went to sleep, I flattened the dead meadows with cardboard. While my zone is not enough to keep the cardboard and underneath wet, it was enough to keep the dirt pliable and the weeds all broke down. It was wonderful. Since then, I have always kept my soil covered with cardboard and if weeds or other organic matters gets under there, I am fine with it. Sometimes I find earthworms under there, which makes me very happy. So having every bit of the garden living is a fantastic idea.
I hope everyone does this, so pathways can work as well. I have not done a set-aside compost heap in a long time. I do do smaller buckets, set atop the soil between plants. The earthworms and fungi love it and the plants have a great time, so it is a good way to "keep" waste while it is breaking down.
great idea many thanks
I recently had trees trimmed and I asked for all the wood chip to be left in the drive. After shifting the mountain, the entire garden is now covered.
It looks great and smells amazing. I’ll look forward to using it on the raised beds.
Liz, please cap those copper pipes, one dodgy trip and you're in trouble!
I have used pine bark nuggets for my paths among beds for some years, but not ever considered the broken down materials as compost. I find the pine bark chips more comfortable to walk on than rock, which matters if you're 75 with 2 replaced knees. Grass for paths is too much work in summer. It's already in the 90s and it's still the middle of May.
Sheet mulching on steroids! I have been using weed scraps and wood chips on my paths for ages. A small electric shredder works wonders and I have a local woodturner who supplies me with fresh, clean sawdust shavings for free. We free range chickens through the paths too and the resulting compost is amazing. I use it for almost everything, from compost for pots to seed starting mix. Lovely video, thank you.
Where we are, the whole point of woodchips is how slowly they decompose. Perhaps it's because they're eucalypt hardwood. Also, I've never seen woodchip that fine. Ours are much coarser
Very smart
I don't do raised beds but sunken paths, where I make compost.
Love, Love, Love this idea. I am in the process of putting down new garden beds and I know this system will be a great idea. I have failed miserably at trying to make compost, so I am exited to use this method. I have had a large black tub in my shade house just to throw in weeds etc, and just like Liz said, a saw that after some time it started to look like real compost, so I am very confident that the pathway method will work wonderfully. Thank you so much Huw for your videos. they are informative and very REAL and very helpful.
I can't wait to try this. Thank you!
Not only amazing ideas in this video, but a great production as well! It's so beautiful!!
Oh wow- Sun! All my compost paths have turned to sludge with the incessant rain we’ve had here on the east coast of Australia. Love this idea. I’m on it once the rain stops!!
Just a thousand rats feeding from it every night
Very good idea, Huw. Honestly, I don't know how to find cardboards. I can get wood chips delivered to my home. But I have learnt I can't add so much of it. I can add composted wood chips (wood chips that have been left for months). Because I can get wood chips easily. The tree loopers are happy to dump a whole truck of wood chips. I don't know if I do the right thing or not. At first I bought a few m3 of compost. Slowly I have to make compost by myself. For your information only. Thank you so much for the video.