Are wood chips and hardwood mulch good for the garden? It is organic matter, and organic matter is necessary to make humus, and humus is good for the garden. The problem with this logic is time. And the factor of time involved is about a decade.To WATCH full episodes, visit http://www.volunteergardener.org
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4 Comments
I don’t feel so badly about the refusal of the tree people to drop off wood chips. I have light gray soil and it’s mucky clay. I frequently feed it coffee grounds and cardboard. Do you have any suggestions for how I can get this soil to be a nice brown. I have also recently planted clover, Crimson and white in it.
I'm confused, a gardener said it's fine to use fresh woodchips as a mulch but listening to you it seems a bad idea, would I be right in thinking this?
I personally disagree with the opinion about 10 years needed for breakdown. Maybe if you pile it in a big pile like that, then yes. Look at back to eden gardening that is mostly based on use the use of raw woodchips. check out Paul Gautschi who has multiple gardens and orchards in which he utilizes both raw, composted, and screened wood chips. copied from his webpage backtoedenfilm – Back to Eden Gardening uses wood chips that are 90% needles, leaves, and branches that have been chipped from tree trimming waste. It is important to understand that the leaves are a source of nitrogen and the branches are a source of carbon. This ratio creates an ideal mulch gardening material when the wood chips have composted.
The wood chips take care of any excess nitrogen in my garden & I don't get aphids.
I also add my chicken waste to new woodchips in separate compost bays & let 'em cook for a year before adding it to the garden also.