Unlocking the Potential of Wood Chips: 5 Creative Ways to Put Them to Use

Lovely to see a vlogger who acknowledges the helpers in the garden!

I sure wish I had learned some of this earlier in my life. I am now 80 with a few medical conditions. I also wish I had learned gardening would be so enjoyable. Too much time trying to make the almighty dollar. I have a 30 by 30 garden that I am using compost from a municipal source that is free. Probably not the best compost but i don’t feel I have enough years left to work compost for 2 or 3 years. I will just keep on keeping on till I can’t anymore. I am not trying to solicit anyone feeling sorry for me but you younger folks get busy. Gardening is so rewarding , even with its failures. God Bless all of you. Y’all havagudun from this ole cowboy. Thanks Charles.

We use new woodchip for all the paths around our veggie patch, which amounts to about 5 or 6 tons. It is placed over a geotextile membrane, and makes a great path. After about 3 years it has broken down too much to still be a good path, so we dig it out and use it as a mulch around the rest of the garden, and bring in some more woodchips for the paths. So no heaps to manage. Our feet and barrow tyres break up the bigger chips, and by the time we spread it on the garden it is full of worms and in a beautiful state.

How can it be that I have reached 57 years of age, attended three universities and 1 agricultural college, and this was the first time I had ever heard the phrase 'dog vomit slime mould'. Thank you Adam - every day is a learning day!!!

The master gardener in a beautiful NoDig garden. Thank you Charles for your knowledge sharing videos.

This video reminds me of Paul Gautschi who is a great advocate for using wood chips in the garden. His Back to Eden film is a wealth of information.

I’ve been wood chipping my garden in the Back to Eden style for 5yrs now. This first 2 were like you said. Lots of yellowing early and needed to add some blood meal to compensate. Now I see the breakdown going faster each year as I layer on another 2-4 inches per year. When I dig down now I find 5-8 inches of beautiful soil and lots more worm and fungal activity. Adding manure top dressing helps too.

I use chips as mulch wherever I can, but don't dig it in, as Charles recommended. I have 5 acres that I manage all by myself -- several gardens, tree planting, and transplanting of seedlings and shrubs I get from friends., so don't have the time to get too elaborate. I try to keep things simple and make compost piles on the ground and turn them over with a pitchfork when I get around to it several times a year. At present I have six different heaps in progress. Everything eventually breaks down! Recently, I used a thin layer of homemade compost around a lot of forsythia I transplanted a few years ago, and covered that with an inch or so of new chips. The compost should feed the soil and the chips, because they were new, will take a long time to break down so I won't have to replace them any time soon. I'm also using homemade compost on top of all my planting beds in the vegetable gardens. This channel has taught me a lot and I really appreciate Charles sharing his experience.

I recently saw a compost pile made with a small coil of chicken wire in the center to help aerate. It was left in place for the duration to ensure the material does not get heavy and cave in. The gardener did not have a hole in the bottom nor was it on a pallet, which is brilliant. I may try that next time. Thank you! I get my wood chips at the city from a gigantic mound. There has to be some amazing compost at the bottom of that heap. Wish I could get my hands on it.

I make my own wood chip from my woodland. Mostly willow. My chipper makes very small & thin chip. What a difference between chip from trees in leaf to chip in dormant season. Salix candida is a large leaved & very soft hardwood willow & this is the majority of my summer chip. The fresh result by volume is about 75-80% leaf to woody matter. We had a mega drought (by Scottish standards) last year, about 3 months no rain. I used this leafy chip as mulch around veg as the watering issue was becoming dire. I also sowed oriental greens seed straight on the bed and just covered with the leafy mix. In both ways it worked fabulously and by late autumn the leafy parts of this chip were completely gone. I was left with very little actual woody matter chip lying on the bed. I scraped the loose bits to the side & covered all the beds with an inch layer of seaweed let to break down & then a few months later some compost. We shall see how this season goes. Thanks for showing us your results with your wood chip composting experimentation.

I like a man who loves analyzing his dirt.

Enjoyed the microscope part of this video; highly fascinating - always curious to see the microscopic world of No Dig! :_Greenhand:

ADAM SEEMS LIKE A FUN GI !!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic Charles, I’ve always used my wood chips from my garden. I started getting my trailer filled at a local tree surgeon yard about 7 years ago after watching back to Eden videos.

I have kept chickens in sheds with large open air, fenced runs attached and used thick (8”) layers of wood chip in the bottom. I usually left it for two years after which the wood chip is largely broken down and there is no lack of nitrogen to cause the yellowing problems. For the past 2 winters I have had to house my chickens in a barn over winter (bird flu restrictions), and have used a 12”+ layer of leaves. I scatter grain on it every day and the scratching around breaks down the leaves brilliantly, all the while adding nitrogen. I cleared it all out last April and put it in its own large compost heap to mellow and at about 16 months it is the nicest looking leaf mold, with plenty of added chicken manure, which will be greatly appreciated when the worms have pulled it down into my heavy clay. The texture would have been fine to use after 5/6 months under the chickens but I was worried it might be too hot. It will soon be time to clear out this winter’s haul. I am very lucky in that I can get large bales of leaves that have been collected by machine, I also have room for large piles of wood chips and leaves that can take their own time until they are ready to use. Love the videos and my back loves no dig!

It’s unbelievable. Not only have you uploaded your asparagus video the night after my friend told me about her growing asparagus, that I decided to give it a try as well, but you also uploaded this video the exact day I was going to get some woodchips for the first time. Thank you!

I've made the mistake of turning the woodchip under my soil and it ruined a season of growth. Good of you to point it out!

When it comes to the subject of woodchips and gardening there can hardly be a better source of information than that from the pioneer of this method the great Jean Pain. From minimal watering to the production of methane gas or passive water heating via large piles of composting woodchips, this man literally wrote the book. The book is probably out of print but PDF copies can be found on the internet. The Methods of Jean Pain: Or Another Kind of Garden

Wow incredibly informative video! Thank you for showing the different methods, the end results, analyzing, and explaining the difference in why 1 method might be better than another. I will definitely put this knowledge into practice.

Love the compost and woodchip videos showing different mulches and composting rates, the experimentation and trials of Homeacres are always a draw for me and fascinating. Loving the new camera angles as well! Fantastic work Charles and the team.