wood chip compost

Here is our pile of woodchips composting. You can see how dark and rich they're becoming. My grandson is "grub hunting" here for June Bug grubs! haha. These chips are about 2 months old and smell soooo good! Can't wait to use them in our new beds!!

Is it just wood chips or do you add anything else?

this pile has only chopped up tree limbs with lots of leaves on them. We are trying the Back to Eden method and had a HUGE truck load of freshly cut chips/leaves dropped off. They are decomposing so nicely, and are slowly transforming our soil into some really nice stuff!

That awesome! I haven't read much on the Back to Eden method. I might have to look it up!

cheyannarach wrote:That awesome!  I haven't read much on the Back to Eden method.  I might have to look it up!

super interesting Cheyenne. There's a thread on here about it too, or you can watch the full video on Backtoedenfilm.com It's about an hour and 45 min long, so watch it when you really have some time to sit back and enjoy. We are transition over right now, so a little too early to tell, but so far it's looking good. REALLY REALLY cuts down on watering for SURE!!

Switching over?  From SFG?  I have seen the thread on hear and saw the link to the video but haven't watched yet.  I will try to remember one of these night after I get the kids to bed!

cheyannarach wrote:Switching over?  From SFG?  I have seen the thread on hear and saw the link to the video but haven't watched yet.  I will try to remember one of these night after I get the kids to bed!

Yes, we are switching over for now. Just can't seem to get the awesome results some people are getting, and want to have an awesome garden for us and our families. Let me know what you think!!

I'm using both methods and covering my MM with wood chips to excellent results.  

We had spent our budget on developing one large (5 x 10) bed and 3, 4 ft table tops and wanted to grow more so we decided to give the BTE a try.  

We took raw hillside with no top soil at all, and in one season, with raw chips saw fabulous results.  The hill is basically decomposed granite.  I'm expanding that for next year and this time will have things preparing over the fall and winter.  

Mel mentions in his books that you can grow in pure compost if you don't have the other ingredients available.  They do that elsewhere in the world where there isn't the money to create the MM.  The woodchips break down very quickly into basically pure compost and a rich loamy soil.  With good home made compost and manures, I have found that you can use the same SFG spacing on most items, but since my gardens are larger I don't always pack them as tight as my raised beds. 

The wood chips accomplish the same goals as SFG, using less water, avoiding weeds, no tilling and growing a lot in small spaces.  I find the two methods extremely compatible.

wow! decomposed granite! that's crazy. I have a friend who wants to try the BTE method, but her soil is super sandy, do you think it would work on her sandy soil? I'm thinking yes if you had good results with granite

It's mostly decomposed granite where I live, which is pretty much yellowish-gray sand.

thank you, Mark. I will tell her! She's gonna be super excited

I went to look at it closely and I can see that there must be some clay mixed with it as there is a fine talcum powder dust, so it's not pure dg

However, the man that came up with the BTE method has built soil us using it over straight rocks with NO SOIL, so there shouldn't be a problem.  Understand that it's not an instant method, but it's pretty darn near miraculous.

Welp, the other bin of compost is doing so nicely, we decided to "go for it" and fill out other two 7x5 bins full of woodchips/leaves as well!!  Our chickens have learned to hop in and out which is really nice. they get in there and turn the piles for us and pick out anything that happens to crawl in too. They haven't gotten to the bottom yet, so hopefully the worms will hide WAYYYY down there.
My husband has been so good to help me with this, I hope it all turns out!!