Wood chips in the garden

[Tania]

Yesterday I checked all the wood chips piles. We have four types - all started at about the same time, in mid July

1. wood chips + coffee grinds
2. wood chips + coffee grinds + kitchen waste
3. Wood chips (dry, we had a dry summer and little rain until now)
4. wood chips (wet - watered by hand)

The results so far:

There is not much difference between #1,2 and 4. They all look very rich dark brown, almost fully broken down. Smell delicious too! Ready to go into the beds before winter. I think they'll break down completely before spring. The only difference was in the process of decomposition - #1 and 2 generated quite a bit of heat over 4-6 weeks period. #4 stayed relatively cool. There are more mycorrhizal threads in #4. Probably because we never turned it, so they developed without being disturbed.

I read that a preferable way of breaking down wood chips is the cool decomposition by fungi. Hot decomposition releases nutrients into the air, so there is some nutrient loss occurs. This does not happen in the cool pile.

#3 (dry) stayed pretty much intact, except a very thin layer that got some rain naturally. The dry mass inside has some blue mould, which I think is bad.

All wet wood chips piles grow mushrooms. This is great, as it means fungi continue to work and break it down.

I do notice a great difference between conifer wood chips and deciduous wood decomposition. Deciduous wood chips break down faster and better, and they have lots of mycorrhizal threads. The next best is fir with lots of needles.

[Tania]

We will not need to order a truck load of compost in spring. The remaining pile of wood chips should break down nicely over winter, with the mild weather and heavy rain we have here.

Looks like all we need is the wood chips and water to make great looking compost. According to what I read, it should be rich in nutrients. We'll see how it works next year!

I will snap a picture next time I am close to the pile with a camera.

Tatiana

[MissS]

Originally Posted by Tania

Another interesting research article that compares vegetable yields with different growing methods, including ramial wood chips.

https://attachment.fbsbx.com/file_do...tLvlaaOv_MPmSq

I get a blank page when I click on the above link.

Thank you for all of your findings on your compost methods. It is quite informative.

[Tania]

Let me figure out how to add the file here.

[Tania]

uploading the file

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by Tania

Yesterday I checked all the wood chips piles. We have four types - all started at about the same time, in mid July

1. wood chips + coffee grinds
2. wood chips + coffee grinds + kitchen waste
3. Wood chips (dry, we had a dry summer and little rain until now)
4. wood chips (wet - watered by hand)

The results so far:

There is not much difference between #1,2 and 4. They all look very rich dark brown, almost fully broken down. Smell delicious too! Ready to go into the beds before winter. I think they'll break down completely before spring. The only difference was in the process of decomposition - #1 and 2 generated quite a bit of heat over 4-6 weeks period. #4 stayed relatively cool. There are more mycorrhizal threads in #4. Probably because we never turned it, so they developed without being disturbed.

I read that a preferable way of breaking down wood chips is the cool decomposition by fungi. Hot decomposition releases nutrients into the air, so there is some nutrient loss occurs. This does not happen in the cool pile.

#3 (dry) stayed pretty much intact, except a very thin layer that got some rain naturally. The dry mass inside has some blue mould, which I think is bad.

All wet wood chips piles grow mushrooms. This is great, as it means fungi continue to work and break it down.

I do notice a great difference between conifer wood chips and deciduous wood decomposition. Deciduous wood chips break down faster and better, and they have lots of mycorrhizal threads. The next best is fir with lots of needles.

I left my pile and we had quite a bit of rain. All hardwood tree chips. It is now lovely compost, just a bit of larger prices. Lots of myco threads and mushrooms.
I now have many, many new piles. I'm placing them in the two new lasagna beds. They'll probably be sitting until around Feb.

[COMPOSTER]

I made 2 piles almost exactly 1 year ago. Both were approximately 5x6x4. One was wood chips, leaves and horse manure/hay/wood shavings. The other was wood chips and leaves. I'm guessing the wood chips I use are 70% hardwood and 30% softwood. Neither pile was covered and we had an average amount of rain for the northeast. Both pile were big time worm magnets. The horse manure pile looks to be about 80% broken down and looks like beautiful black compost. The wood chips/leaves pile has not broken down nearly as much. It looks more like a mixture of wood chips and compost. I'm very surprised by how much these piles broke down in 1 year, especially the horse manure pile. My expectations were that it would take more like 2 years to achieve this level of decomposition as both piles were static.

On another note, I mulched 3 1/2 whisky barrels with the wood chips this year after planting a tomato plant in each one. I added 8 or 10 worms to each one after mulching. The plants did excellent and the top inch of soil was just loaded with worm castings at the end of the season.

The one problem I have encountered so far in my first year of using wood chips in the garden is a noticeable increase in slugs. I 'm not sure this is from the wood chip mulch but it was much less of a problem in the beds I mulch with grass clippings and leaves.

I've been inspired by Tatiana to build a pile of chips this Fall mixed with coffee grounds. I drive by a Starbucks twice a day and find it easier to pick up grinds than the horse manure. the cool thing is the more I stop by to pick up the grinds the more they seem to have available to be picked up. What use to be a hit or miss situation has now turned into a solid 75 to 150 lbs per week. I'm hoping to be able to report good things with the coffee grinds as I love being able to use waste products in my gardening. Especially if they are FREE!


Hope the blue mold in the wood chips is not bad as I have it in several of my beds where the chips are the most compacted.

Glenn

[ChrisK]

Just had an *enormous* load of fresh chips dumped (my back will be aching by Sun. night) Lots of Oak in it plus some pine. It literally smells like a Napa wine cellar out there!

Most will go to the chicken run, layered on the various beds, paths, and some diverted to indoor mushroom cultivation.

I'll just move a little aside where I want to set the tomatoes next spring. Nothing fancy needed.