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This is just the beginning in terms of exploring this fascinating but often misunderstood resource on this channel. In this video I mention how woodchip can be a way to make huge amounts of compost in the medium-term, a kind of woodchip that is very exciting for annual production potential, and also an interesting benefit of using woodchip as a path material. I hope you enjoy and don’t forget to enter our contest, info a little further down 🙂
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I've used wood chips in the past but stopped when the local cats used it as a big litter tray!
Michael Phillips also talks about Ramial Chipped Wood in "The Holistic Orchard"
interesting video
Been looking into purchasing a small wood chipper because we dont get many large tree branches just a few that may gall off neighbors trees (urban area). But we do get the newer trees growing from seeds and side branches that we cut off and i would like to chip down into a usable mulch for the garden. Thanks for the gardening ideas.
What TYPE of wood chip? Is cedar ok to use?
Woodchip seems great if you can get a plentiful supply, but I don't have that. I think you just have to use whatever organic matter you can, be that compost or woodchip, it's all good.
In your walkway you might prefer bigger chunks. They break down slower, that way you don't have to refill as often. whenever you walk on it you're pressing it in the soil. Maybe some cardboard underneath, or at least be mindful of what's directly underneath. You want a thick layer in the pathway, preferred with cardboard underneath for a mean weed suppressing combo. Walking on the woodchips makes them break down faster as well, even more with RCW. In the beds it's mostly just a slow breaking down mulch. the layer is very thin for it to do some serious breaking down in one season, hence the preference for the smaller RCW chucks in that area.
It basically is a step up from leaf compost or leaf mulch, it's slower and bulkier. Very well broken-down woodchips makes a good seeding soil, much like leaf compost does.
I wonder how young bamboo relates to this process. I have a lot of bamboo which needs thinning each year anyway. It makes a great pathway material and mulch, but I may have to try a bed with just bamboo and another with just the tree branches..
Brilliant.
"There is a guy… called Iain Tolhurst" XD
I've had good results from inoculating woodchip paths with wine cap mushrooms.
Thank you
Any discussion of woodchip needs to consider how fine it's been chipped (I can only get quite coarse) and particularly the type of tree it comes from (ours are almost all hardwood and take MANY years to break down). Here it's almost solely used as a path material or on shrubbery beds to suppress weeds there
I have six, large, ex council wheelie bins of which I fill three every year with wood chips & shredded twigs, hedge trimmings & other woody material.
The 12 month old stuff is then used as a 2"/50mm layer on the paths between my no dig beds each January.
By the following year, it's almost entirely gone & plants in the beds put HUGE amounts of roots into the layer under the paths.
Carbon for my compost bays?
I shred around 250kg of corrugated cardboard cardboard every year, soak it in "recycled beer" & add that to all the grass clippings, weeds, veg trimmings, etc.
Woodchips are the bomb. I use about 60-90 yards every year. More if I put in new beds.
Thanks Huw, RCW looks very interesting!
My soil is "water repellent dead sand". I have made woodchip paths between raised beds, and now the paths are better than the beds. I drop weeds from the raised beds onto the paths. Rather than pull out weeds growing in the paths, I slice them off with a sharpened spade to retain the roots in the soil. It is very quick and effective. Larger chunks of mulched wood are heaped around the base of fruit trees.
I live in a desert city. Months ago I got a large dump of woodchips from an arborist and I'm so glad. I have some of it composting, some of it is ground cover, some mulch. The soil is improving already. I'm ready for another load.
Can chips from pine trees / needles be used in gardens?
We get a lot of tree trimmers that trim trees and we can get the chips free.
this is something i need to get better at doing. So far, I've put woodchips in ALL my paths and everywhere around it and even on top of some of my beds. Unfortunately, i've had wood lice eating all my seedlings now. So, be careful!
If one wants to read 35 years on the use of wood chips on farm and forest, McGill University courses using "ramial wood" OR "bois rameal fragmente" and some of it's in French too 🙂 The course goes into the effect GREEN hardwood chips and even conifer tips like hedging rot down real fast and don't acidify. There are ways to improve no-till as well, and spoiler alert, it's by mixing somewhat when adding and turning the beds every 5 years to avoid compaction.
As someone with a lot of trees and hedges to trim, this is awesome info. I did paths between rows of one potato bed with my wood chips made in my own chipper from small branches with leaves (even lots of leylandii and fir!). They did MUCH better than the other bed where I did not, even preferring to grow into the paths! You have to use this kind of chippings right away, I found else it all goes mouldy…