How To Use Wood Chips In The Garden & Build Healthy Soil #woodchips #garden #gardeningtips #plants

In this video I show you the before and after results after many years of using wood chips in my garden. Using wood chips was the #1 game changer for my garden and has allowed me to transform my native sandy soil into soil rich in organic matter. I show you how to get lots of free wood chips, how I move it around the garden, different ways to use wood chips, and answer some frequently asked questions about wood chip gardening to dispell some myths.

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#woodchips #backtoeden #notillgardening

hello Gardener welcome to my Channel today we’re moving a massive amount of free wood chips throughout the entire Garden so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show you how I’ve been using wood chips to completely transform my garden out of all of the things that I have done in my garden using wood chips has been the biggest game changer for me my native soil is very Sandy and doesn’t retain nutrients so building the soil with lots of biomass is key a few years ago I started getting free deliveries of wood chips and laying it all over the garden now I have a solid 12 to 15 in thick layer of Rich composite soil to grow in if you’ve been thinking about using wood chips this video will show you how to use wood chips in the garden answer some frequently asked questions that I get about wood chips and lastly show you the end result if you’re new here hello and welcome my name is JRA and I teach people how to garden and grow food this video is one of many gardening guides that can be found on my channel where I share my knowledge about growing food and other edible plants so make sure you subscribe to my channel if you want to develop your gardening skills so why use wood chips being able to make your own compost is an essential Gardening Skill at some point you will have to master it in order to develop the soil and maximize your Garden’s potential unless you can just buy compost but that gets very expensive especially when you have a big Garden composting requires certain ratios of brown carbon Rich ingredients like wood or cardboard and green nitrogen Rich ingredients like leaves and produce scraps my property has no trees so getting brown and green materials to compost with is very challenging I can grow my own biomass to use in composting but my garden is so small I would rather devote the space to Growing food luckily I’m able to get a huge pile of wood chips which pretty much solves all of that it provides a massive amount of free Brown ingredients which is the wood in the wood chips and green ingredients which is all the leaves that I use to compost in place I like the compost and place method over make a big pile flip it over every now and then and wait a few years method because it is way easier I spread a very thick layer like 5 in or so of wood chips all over my garden walkways in between my annual veggie crops under my fruit trees everywhere this thick layer will slowly compost over the next 1 to 2 years making rich soil without me having to do any more work besides the initial labor involved with moving it and placing it around the garden I get a delivery about once a year it’s a lot of work but totally worth it let’s discuss the benefits and cons of using wood chips in the garden let’s start with the benefits wood chips are a free resource of a massive amount of organic matter I get mine for free by submitting a request on chipdrop.com but you can also call around and ask local tree cutting or arborous service companies if they would give you w chips left over from their jobs a lot of companies are happy to give them away and deliver them for free because they have to pay to dispose of it when I get a delivery it’s huge luckily my brother is helping me move this pile today wood chips are an organic pesticide and herbicide free biomass Source trees tend to not be sprayed with a bunch of chemicals other compost materials like hay straw or even certain animal manures can be contaminated with herbicides like gron which if applied to your Garden kills everything and contaminates the soil for years by using wood chips I don’t have to worry about all of that wood chips help regulate soil moisture and temperature which help plants Thrive they smother out weeds for a pretty long time too eventually the crab grass that I have starts creeping in but it’s nice to not have to worry about it for a while if you are gardening in neemod prone areas you may have heard over and over again the importance of adding organic matter into the soil to deter them nematodes love warm and moist sandy soil which is exactly what we have here in Florida wood chips decompose into non- sandy soil rich in organic matter which are not the preferred environment for nematodes I’m not saying nematodes don’t ever infest healthy soil but it definitely helps wood chips decompose slowly over time releasing nutrients that feed both plants and beneficial microbes in the soil they are a food source for a variety of fungi which helps to inoculate the soil if you use wood chips or mulch don’t be surprised if you find mushrooms fungi molds like dog vomit slime mold appearing around the garden these things are arless to both humans and plants so don’t worry they are a sign of healthy soil biology lastly wood chips like mulch are a barrier between plants and soil born pathogens that cause disease a nice thick layer reduces the chances that these pathogens jump up onto the leaves of your plants and spread now let’s discuss the cons of using wood chips there is a lot of concern about wood chips pulling nitrogen out of the soil which affects plants this is true a lot of nitrogen is involved in the decomposition process of wood chips so it does does pull nitrogen out of the soil if you till the wood chips into your soil then the wood chips will pull nitrogen out of the soil making it unavailable to your plants but that is completely avoidable either compost it down first or don’t mix it into the soil use it as a mulch I choose to not mix it in with my soil since I am doing no till gardening anyways therefore I have not had any issues with Lac of nitrogen in my garden there are some cons when using a service like chip drop just so you’re aware I get my wood chips by submitting a request through the chip drop website you don’t know when it’s coming or how much of it you’re going to get you get an email that says they will be delivered within the next 48 hours and that’s it that’s all the notice you get to prepare I move our cars and set up a large tarp for them to dump the wood chips on our driveway so far I’ve been very lucky that the deliveries I have received from Chip drop have been oak tree matter and chopped into consisten Siz pieces every delivery has been very big easily 20 cubic yards or more I have heard some gardeners report that they received wood from invasive tree species or witch hiips infested with ants or types of pests my husband used to work in pest control so he inspects the wood chip pile before we start Distributing it around the property and so far it’s been good the next con can be turned into a benefit if you get creative all of the deliveries I have received have been wood chips only except for this one the driver showed up with some log pieces but I was actually okay with them they were cut into small pieces and easy for me to move around some of them would make for really cute Garden stools like this one or Stepping Stones I also plan to attempt growing some mushrooms on them if you have grown mushrooms on wood logs in Florida please please comment and let me know which varieties grew well for you I’m not even sure mushrooms Will Survive the heat here in Florida but I guess I’ll find out you can also use the wood for firewood garden decorations or for other crafts I’ve seen some people build some very beautiful raised garden beds edged with all of these types of logs the last con is the labor it takes to move this stuff around the garden I don’t have any Machinery or tractors so my only option is manual labor luckily my brother is helping me today otherwise it takes me 3 days in a row to move this by myself we scoop all of this up with a pitchfork fill a wheel barow and then bring it into the garden to spread it around if you have a better method for moving this then please let me know in the comments I do this about once a year though so I just hunker down and deal with it then I’m good for a very long time okay let’s discuss some ways wood chips can be used around the garden first up you can leave the pile of wood chips to decompose over the course of a few years to turn into compost there are so many ways that you can make compost the best way to speed up the time it takes to be finished compost is by keeping it moist adding more greens turning the pile over more often and keeping the pile hot if you have chickens they will till the pile for you and eat any bugs they find use wood chips to cover Pathways as a mulch in the garden beds and under fruit trees it is really great for building food forests you can use wood chips to fill the bottom of new raised beds or containers to take up space that way you don’t need as much soil to fill them up and if you have chickens again wood chips make for a fantastic flooring material in the coupe it keeps things dry and will form fantastic compost with the addition of chicken manure hopefully I gave you a lot of ideas on how to use w chips around the garden and Homestead now I wanted to take some time to answer the most frequently asked questions you guys asked me about using wood chips number one will wood chips attract termites this was a huge concern for us termites don’t like wood chips but they do like moist environment so if the wood chips or any mulch for that matter is consistently moist that can be an issue it is advised to not put wood chips or any mulch right up against your house or other structures it is good to have a buffer in between number two is it okay to use wood chips as a mulch under veggie crops flowers and herbs yes I mulch everything in my garden under all the plants the pathways and the surface of any grow bags containers or raised beds that I have again the key is to not mix it with the soil use it as a mulch on the surface only number three can you direct so seeds in wood chips I would say no not initially anyways the size of the chips is too big it’s Mulch and things really struggle to put down roots and stay moist if growing in just mulch a way around this is to remove some of the wood chips until you hit the soil underneath and then sew the seeds in that cleared area don’t cover it back up with the wood chips just leave that spot open direct sew your seeds and grow them like normal number four can you plant transplants into wood chips I would also say no to this at least planting straight into wood chips instead I pull back the wood chips and dig a hole into the soil and then plant the transplant into the soil another idea is to pull back some of the wood chips fill in the hole with soil or compost to kind of make a mound and then directo seeds like things for melon lens or squash or transplant something into that mound the key here is that the plant’s root system or the root ball is put into the soil not the wood chips number five if the wood chips have a lot of leaves and sticks in it is that okay yes the leaves are a great source of green matter which will compost down and add nitrogen into the soil I leave the sticks as is eventually they will break down or you can use them like Huga culture style and fill the bottom of raised beds containers Etc to take up space before filling it with soil number six are there any certain types of wood that are not good for wood chips there are some tree species like black walnut that produce chemicals that kill nearby plants some people say that these compounds are only found in trees that are alive though and pretty much dissipates when chipped into wood I’m no biologist or chemist though just telling you what I have heard and read about the subject luckily I’ve always received Oak okay so we’re close to being done wood chipping everything I love the way my garden looks after all of these chips are in place it’s a nice clean blank just in time for spring gardening so is it all worth it well this is what my Florida native sandy soil looks like it’s dry hard and doesn’t hold nutrients very well this is what my soil looks like after wood chips have composted down it’s moist and crumbly it’s a night and day difference in my opinion all this hard work is totally worth it well I hope you learned something new today about using wood chips in the garden and you got a little behind the scenes look at what goes into making this Garden wood chips are an essential Foundation to the success of my garden and the reason why I’m able to grow all the things that you you guys see in my videos if you have any more questions about using wood chips or if you have any creative ways to use them please comment below if you have not already please consider subscribing and giving me a big thumbs up that helps my channel out more than you know thank you for watching and happy gardening