BREAKING #1 Rule in WOOD CHIPS in the Back to Eden Gardening Method. Can I plant directly into wood chips ( 2+ years old). This test will show us some interesting results Compare to composting leaves. PART 2 of 4 LINK BELOW ……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nluggwjWRrg&list=PLUKzcNTgpg9VVVlEHDN-b2JRh9q3wDC5j&index=2
Nice to see ya back, Mark. Looks like black gold under those chips! I think this will work well. The key is probably the length of time decomposing. Hope it woks well for ya 🙂
Peas love aged woodchips, and produce well! Enjoy!
I have done this with kale with 2 inches of wood chips direct sow, they did awesome. SInce doing this I bought an Earthway planter and I am testing planting directly into the wood chips.
Notice that weeds grow in the wood chips with no problem from direct sow 🙂
Interesting experiments, should work fine like you said because it is moist enough to not dry out. My pea experiments this year were that i put them in early, feb 28 zone 6a, and i had pre sprouted the seeds. They are just popping up now. Interesting low growing stratigy for mowing afterwards. Im doing trellis and then leaving the trellis up and growing cucumbers on it after the peas come out. Another thought on your nitrogen noduals, you might already have so much fertility in that ground that the plants dont need to make them anyways, not sure how they behave when there is already surplus nitrogen in the soil.
Hey Mark, nice to see you have garden projects going again! Looking forward to seeing your future updates. Thanks again for posting and happy Easter and wish your son the very best in the US Marines! God Bless.
Good experiment. Looking forward to seeing your results.
it Starts (the Lion King)
Hi Mark. I think they'll do great. Once those woodchips have broken down it makes brilliant compost.
i had extra potatoes last season and tried it. They grew but very small. Can't wait to see how the peas come out.
looks like you have nicely composted wood chips your plants will love it
Absolutely, a terrific experiment…I have same aged chips and was debating the exact same thing. Good Luck!
I love my Ryobi electric riding mower. BTW, I planted some potatoes directly in my wood chips. They came up just fine and are nice and green and sturdy so far. Thanks for the tips!
They should do fine; though you’ve planted into the wood chips, the roots are going to go straight down into the soil as well.
My bet is they'll do great. Great project. Looking forward to the followups.
Mark, I am thinking because your wood chips have been breaking down and its very clear from what we see in the video that it surely had been breaking down, your snap peas will do fine. Here in Maine, I am very excited to get into my BTE gardens. I am going into my 3rd year of this method, but I still have 2 to 3 feet of snow on my main gardens.
Blessings,
Jim
Why not?
Please do keep us updated.
Two years was enough for me to grow sugar snap peas directly in woodchips. I used mulch from a grinder.Good luck!
Thanks for sharing the video. Just subscribed to your channel. Hope you do the same.
This popped up in my feed. I'm 6B, as well, Bucks Co. Nice to have a local to follow!
Mark, it was my understanding that after the wood chips have been down for at least one year, it is okay to plant directly in them.
We are hanging on the edge of our seats for the follow-up!!! We have chips that are just waiting for similar planting…. We are sooo looking forward to Spring…. we just had another 5 inches of snow…. yuck! Looks nice there…. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!!
Interesting timing. Was thinking about trying to plant some seeds directly in the wood chips in our garden. With our recent greenhouse project we had to move some areas of mulch that had been there a while. The soil underneath was amazing – more importantly it was not there – just sand on red clay. Now it has rich black soil.
I obtained two large dumpster trucks full of wood chips via chipdrop.com for free earlier this year (April-ish)
I have been adding grass clippings on top of the pile, but not much compared to the size of the wood chips pile. My chip drop location is on a major road right off two highways so I probably had good luck that way.
Here is my question for you reading this (thank you!): I am using these fresh wood chips as a mulch and weed barrier. I use cardboard as a weed block, spray it wet, then cover in a few inches of wood chips. I intend to add a few more inches later this summer when I am not so busy planting. My question: can I dig through the wood chips and cardboard, spread them out of the way, and add perennial plants/trees in these wood chip mulch areas? How about the same but using annual flowers like sunflower and zinnia ?
This is my plan, I am going ahead with it this season! Will you give me any tips and I will update later this season with how it all turns out. Cheers!
Out the back we have a concrete slab that is higher than the surround ground. I moved wood chips there to make a ramp on either side. These wood chips are from eucalyptus trees. As an experiment I sowed grass seed directly into the wood chips and lightly raked them over.
A couple of months later the grass has sprouted. I’ll see how they go into spring and summer. It’s winter here in Australia.
I think this "#1 rule" depends on where you live. I'm in Central Florida and it rains a lot here. Hence, our wood chips decay a lot quicker than anywhere else. That creates a very nice organic matter on the wood chip layer very quickly. I've started experimenting planting things directly into that layer and just keep piling more wood chips over it. They have been doing fine. I noticed that pots on top of the wood chips would have the plants trying to root down below into the wood chip layer, and once they did, the plant would get a jolt of growth that made it look very nice. So.. why not just transplant it there!
Great video! Just started planting in my back to Eden garden this week. I dug a hole in the mulch, down to the original soil, but then I added some top soil to the hole so that my plants wouldn't be so far down (wood chips are about 8 in thick). Do you think that that will be acceptable? Or should i not add top soil to raise the soil so it's level with the mulch? Thanks!
I'm trying to use woodchips to build a 16" berm approx. 30ft long…. How long will it take until this is dirt I can grow grass on? Thinking of buying compost to mix in and speed up the process.
Magic Mushrooms LOVE wood chips!