Back to Eden No Till Organic Gardening 101 Method with Mulch VS Leaves Composting Garden Soil #2 

I can vouch for this method. We have very heavy clay soils here. One year I decided to lay out some beds for ornamental plants along a fence. I used a trick I had learned to lay out the bed, cut out the edge and toss the soil (clay) into the bed area. Then you just cover the bed area, grass and all with several layers of newspapers, and top that with 4-6 inches of mulch. An easy, almost I instant bed. The plan was to come back and just move the mulch and paper back, then improve the individual hole and plant. Being a fairly lazy gardener, I didn't get back to the bed until close to a year later. When I pulled the mulch back to put a plant in, it was no longer heavy clay! It was a dark rich crumbly soil, teeming with earthworms and other life. I continued adding compost and mulch to the bed and planting in it, amazed at what my laziness had wrought. Several years later we lost the fence to a hurricane, and I hired a really good fence company to install the new one. They dug 4' deep holes for the posts (most only dig 2-3' deep). I was concerned that they weren't going to dig that deep when their gas auger broke down on the second hole and they had to switch to post hole diggers and do it all by hand. I went out to check and see if they were actually digging as deep as they said they were going to (and to apologize for the gumbo clay), and they were. When I mentioned the clay, they said "it's not that bad" and I looked into the holes, I was shocked! Simply laying heavy mulch down for a few years had improved the sticky, stinky, lifeless grey sludge into decent soil at least four feet deep! I've moved since then and need to start collecting leaves here and start improving this clay with heavy mulch.

The leaves of the trees are for the healing of nations!

Extremely interesting. Went to NO-TILL gardening in 2016 for my backyard garden (15x35ft) and was really surprised how well it did. I must confess that I've been adding 75+ bags of mulched leaves & pine needles to it every for the last 10 years. I also put cardboard down before re-mulching after planting to inhibit weed growth, maintain soil moisture and lessen soil temperature extremes. Thanks for your input.

We cover raised beds with 4" of leaves in fall. In spring, there's not much of that left, but the soil is soft and full of worms, which create passageways for water and air. We use wood chips for perennials and paths. Our original soil 8 years ago was mostly compacted clay with a little sand and pebbles.

I love how we've come full circle with all the tilling and the dustbowl and other agricultural calamities all just to come back to the way things worked in the first place. Power to you for teaching the way!

You did an amazing job explaining this! I'm so excited because I put a bunch of leaves on my garden. It was a lot of work to get them. The town we live near will pick up bags of leaves for free one day in the fall. So the weekend before that day, when every one had put their bags of leaves out at the curb for collection, my kids and I ran to town with a stock trailer and stuffed as many bags as I could into it. Also a few weeks prior to that I posted on a local buy sell trade page that I was looking for leaves. A lot of people raked, bagged, and saved their leaves for me. When I went to town i had people asking me if I was the one wanting leaves and they would tell me they had some I could pick up. The kids were so embarrassed and were saying I was becoming known as the crazy leaf lady around town. Lol. Any how, I collected over 400 bags of leaves altogether. Wishing I could have gotten more because they've broken down quickly so I don't have a very thick layer in spots. I will probably hay or straw in those spots to prevent weeds for this year and then plan to collect even more leaves this fall.

I can't figure out if you are more like Baxter's world or Bill Nye the science guy but I truly appreciate your time and effort you have taken to teach me about gardening and why these methods work. Blind faith with planting is interesting but riddled with anxiety, but knowing the science is empowering. Thank you thank you thank you.

I felt like I was in class again. I’m 60 and was sitting up straight listening. LOL. I knew adding wood chips and leaves would break up my hard pan but now I know how and don’t have to just hope it works. Thank you, thank you, thank. Great class. Now I’m headed outside to shovel more wood chips. !!!!!

It does work well, In a past life I had a plot in No.Ill. we needed more garden space for our Pumpkins and Squash and I had an area 40 X 40 in the center of a grass plot in the yard that was overgrazed by our Geese. It was hardpack clay over glacial till. Not even weeds would grow. I decided that this would be my test plot. Since there was no life at all I tilled it first to soften the surface and increase surface area, Then I added 4" of chicken house compost to replace nutrients and jump start it, This was in the fall so I added 6" of leaves/grass clippings to help with the carbon and nitrogen amounts. On top of that I added 6" of recently chipped wood mulch. I let this settle over the winter By spring outdoor planting time (Late May) the soil was filled with earthworms and pillbugs I did not disturb the surface after this I surrounded the plot with snow fence for the winter and for the garden (helped keep the free range chickens and geese off) Bumper crop first year vine crops tried to escape the garden second spring volunteers and mushrooms arrived another bumper crop including volunteer tomatoes from the compost. moved from property before third season. I still had escaping vines that set fruit so my rule was if it set fruit before I mowed the grass around the garden I let it be otherwise it would be trimmed by the mower Brutal but necessary. if I did not do this it would have self expanded to my entire front yard. Over the 20+ years I was on that property my regular gardens (50 X 60') soil height had risen over 9" with the addition of organic matter ( compost ,leaves, wood chips) Again it was an area that was waste land between buildings when started. I started that garden by conventional methods ( tilling but no weed suppression products) But incorporated the Organic matter from the start tilling in the fall to incorporate the previous season top dressed organics. Once my tiller died i went back to eden method (I did not know it at the time) I do have original Rodel books on organic farming from the 60's and I use those as my guide.

Mark, Thank you so much for this easy to understand presentation which we will be watching this evening as a family. Please don't think you need to temper your excitement and enthusiasm while presenting these videos because those of us that are looking for the same thing feel it too ! Looking forward to more of your educational uploads.

Thanks for this insight. There's so much mythology around soil fertility and "depleted soil minerals" and such. We are standing on the ground, full of minerals... Seems that feeding the microbiology and building humus is not so complicated (for us), and we can let a distressed soil remake itself by giving it a little help, nothing too expensive or rare at all. Less is More!

Great info. I watch all my neighbors blow there leafs and put them in a can for the city to pick up and I just shake my head. I leave mine where they are and I have all sorts of random things growing in our yard now where the neighbors can't grow weeds. (We have incredibly heavy iron clay here.) Every year it gets better and better on its own and I don't do a thing.

You explained this far better than any other video on you tube. I very much enjoyed this and the visuals were so helpful. I live in north Texas with hard red clay soil. I’ve slowly been amending it with grass clippings and fall leaves 🍂.

I love your enthusiasm!

Thank you, that was fascinating and very educational.

It just shows how wise god is in designing our wonderful home, the earth.

You did a great job explaining the science! Never really understood it before but now I do. Thanks :)

amazing. Thank you for the presentation. Now we know!!!

Thank you so much. I love how you break things down and demonstrate what you are talking about. You think of things of why and go after it. Now making my job a lot easier. Just fascinating. Have an awesome day

This was excellent looking forward to watching more of your material. Thank you

Thank you. I am so encouraged by this! I love starting gardens but know so little about how to garden successfully. I'm going to binge watch your videos!

Wow! You put a lot of work into this video. I throughly enjoyed it. I subbed and laughed at your screwdriver pointer😂

You did a great job explaining that process! Your farm is looking great! Thanks for sharing this with us :)

This is so well explained thank you! I’m visual so your demonstration was very easy to understand. A great argument for more mulching and valuing what falls from our trees.

Hi, I really liked this video,very interesting info. Thank you!!!

Mark! That was the best explanation I have seen to date and I've been watching a lot of videos about building and improving soil. I'm learning myself and hope to be able to acquire a piece of land to start a food forest from scratch. Thank you for this amazing video, it was the first of your videos I have seen and I subscribed already. Going to check your other videos now 😉

This is wonderful. Mark, you're an inspiration. What you're showing, so vividly, is jiving with everything else I'm learning through hands-on experience and reading.

Thank you, Thank you! You did a great job explaining so I could understand.

I never thought someone could make composting so interesting. The explanation behind this was next level intelligent. Thank you for sharing. Please keep up the good work.👍

This is a superb demonstration Sir and great news for me as well ! I was able to get one load of fresh cut wood chips last year to get started but I'm having trouble getting anymore. Your leaves vs mulch method has shown me that I will be just fine in my no dig garden using my own leaves which I have plenty of . Thanks again for sharing your knowledge with us new gardeners ! Your a blessing !

Great example with the cut out samples and explanation. Thanks.

You are a very good teacher, amazing and thank you so much. 😇

I am just learning about this method. Your video was very edifying--thanks!

I love that you explain the science of the no-till method. Your diagrams are very helpful. Thank you for another well-done and informative video.

It is amazing! Thank you for sharing!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Great explanation on how everything works together to make healthy soil. Thank you and God Bless you and your family.

You are living my dream. I would love to have an organic farm one day. Thanks for all the knowledge. I have been trying to add stropharia rugoso to my wood chips this year.

Thank you! Awesome demonstration and explanation. We are creating a very large garden on top of very sandy soil which we have wanted to do for decades. We decided to use leaves and wood chips because our new home has an abundance of them and I know what is in my soil and plants. Its also very economical. Tree trimmers will usually drop them off to you for free if gardeners do not have enough material on their land. We also use compost because being vegetarian we have so much of it. Thanks so much for all of your time on this!! I love knowing the science behind the information. Much appreciated.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Now I understand thoroughly the power of wood chips and leaves.🙏🏻

Great video. I learned so much. Thank you🙏

Great teaching video! Your thoughtful preparation, testing, diagrams etc. really drive these lessons home! I just found your channel today and am thoroughly enjoying your content & engaging personality. Of course I subscribed. ;-) I also teach, utilizing my property for field study with environmental engineering students, eager gardeners & young learners too. Easy to see you enjoy each aspect; you are contributing to so many people - thus, our environment benefits greatly. Thank you so much for your dedication. From a new fan in Virginia Beach, VA.

So educational! I've believed soil needs tilling for aeration, though I understand it makes nematodes and mycorraziah go away. Because of your clear explanation, and extensive research and experience, I now understand. Nature is always best left to its own devices. Though we endlessly try to duplicate, we fail to replicate its beauty and perfection.

I love this! I have been doing BTE garden for about a year and a half now. I love watching my sandy soil come to life before my eyes.

This was a great video. It shows that using even the most basic ingredients that nature has to offer is much easier and sustainable than many of us ever thought. I have a combination of raised beds and have started planting a "food forest" of sorts. I do compost. But 80%-90% of my compost is fallen oak leaves and rotting oak limbs. The white fungus grows throughout and even on top of the ground under my oak trees. And as you say, once this microbial life is in the garden it will keep regenerating as you feed it with leaves and/ or other organic material. And all this is free.

EXCELLENT VID!!!!!! Best I've seen in a long time. I'm saving and sharing. Thank you in a huge way!!!!

Great content in this video. just subscribed. thanks for sharing!

Thank YOU so much. Love your explainations, i keep mulling about it

You explained this so well :) Thank you! This is so amazing, soil is such a beautiful thing

great greatly teacher, damn wish I had you in the 7th grade would have made my 8th grade. fabulous. I am subscribed

Brilliant garden lesson, thank you for taking the time to demonstrate.

I've never been more excited about what's happening in soil, this is incredible!

Another awesome video! Thanks for your efforts in bringing us on your journey!

this video has the most amazing likes to dislikes ratio i have ever seen. awesome mate well done

Thank you for this amazing recipe for good soil , I’m definitely giving this a try with wood chips . And I’m no longer getting rid of raked up leaves 👌🏼

Fantastic research and knowledge. I'm putting this to work. Fungi rule!

You did great Mark! What an inspiration, very knowledgeable.

Great explanation of why this method works. I haven't figured out how to get the city to pay me to take their leaves, but I drive around my town and collect about 150 bags of leaves each fall and spread them on my city garden (80x20). I let my chickens run the garden all winter so they break down the leaves and spread them all over the place. They enjoy all the extra worms & microbial life and it's free food for them. Plus their manure helps break down the leaves. This has been an easier, free cover for me than woodchips plus it keeps all those bags of leaves out of the landfills.

Great video, I love your channel! I think the weight of the evidence is in favor of the Back to Eden method, as it replicates fungal dominated composting in-situ. I am getting an acre or two soon and will be conducting experiments on this topic! Keep up the great work, your videos are awesome!

This is one of the most incredible videos I have ever seen. So we'll explained!!! Thank you

Mark, your explanation was right on point! You are doing very good helping us understanding the process, keep up the good work!!

good info, i plan to combine this with huglekulture, im working on a hugle bed with tons of fungus covered wet rotted logs buried under the soil, covered with compost and leaves and chips, then a green mulch to fix nitrogen and keep living roots in the soil

I'm so glad you did this video. I've been using the BTE method for three years in Florida. It turned my beach sand into a black loamy soil. I now live in the North Georgia Mountains where there is nothing but hard orange clay and rock. I've already begun incorporating the BTE but it is going much slower than when I was working with sand. I am trying to find out if I can get someone to start dumping chips here.

The professor is in! This is the best explanation of how the relationship between fungi and bacteria work. Thank you so much!

Well explained. I spent hours earlier today mulching bags and bags of leaves i collected from neighbors. Achy but having seen this, i am one happy gardener.🤠

Just look under a pile of leaves that you continue to keep piling up more leaves there every year. You'll see how nice the soil is. It's full of worms too. So this all makes complete sense. In fact I have a dumping place right outside my kitchen door. I had been dumping my boiled chicken broth water on those leaves almost daily because my dogs eat boiled chicken every day, plus I throw out veggie scraps, all sorts of organic matter and what do you know? My old Celery started growing up through there and extremely healthy under the leaves all winter. Wow I couldn't believe in 8 degree nights that it was growing and not freezing. It was then I realized I was on to something. That's when I started searching the back to Eden method. I'm working on getting a huge garden area ready for spring 2019. It's hard to wait that long but I want it done right. So guess I'll be tilling this year for a small garden but next year it should be fantastic! Thanks for your video. Explains it GREAT.

Can I add coffee grounds on top of the wood chips to increase the fertility of my soil, or would that be detrimental? Curious about your stand on adding amendments such as coffee grounds from Starbucks. Thanks!

This is what l needed , the video has made it clear to me. Now l know what my SOIL REALLY NEEDS. .... THANK YOU.

Great video! Thanks for the info. You make this very easy to understand 👍🔆🌱

if u don't have woodchips or leaves can you use cardboard boxes??

You havd ptovided us with the greatest wisdom. Thank u for your effort.

Love it! Very educational. Thanks for posting. Blessings, -katrina

Omg that's AWESOME! thank you so much. I get it now. I really appreciate your video.

Great explanation. Thanks it helped.

Amazing presentation! Thank you!

Wow! I just found your channel and subscribed!!! You’re a great teacher...I knew the back to Eden worked and now you’ve explained it in detail and I get it now...thank you!!

It' is nice to learn the actual terminology in such an approachable manner, Thank you.

You sure do a great job. This demo definitely one of the best I’ve seen. Thank you.

Your best is awesome! Love the visuals too. Thank you.

I love your videos. Thank you so much for making this information easier to understand.

Awesome! Very educational. Thank you!

Wonderful video. First time I've understood the workings towards good soil. Thank you. 🇦🇺

Very informative!!!! Thank you for posting this.

Very, very cool research and explanation. Thank you for sharing.

I thoroughly enjoyed your vblog. Thanks for all the work you put into this video!

I enjoyed your video. So educational and you really put a lot of effort in making this video for people like me who tries hard in making my crop soil better but failed. Thanks a lot!

You did an excellent job explaining this! Well done. Keep up the great work; we are learning from you.

Gorgeous video! So clear and fabulous enthusiasm. I'm a new gardening, building my compacted clay soil with cardboard, compost, leaves, and wood chips! It is so exciting! Thanks for this video!

Great educational video. I’m going to be moving to a heavy clay soil. This appears to be the answer to a concern with my compacted clay soil. Thank you.

Fantastic explanation! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 😃

Great example! Thanks for the explanation!

absolutely fantastic video great

Wonderful. May God bless and keep you. You are providing the best teaching on the web. It is understandable to the layman, while providing the scientific evidence.

I can say that it works--- HAD clay soil in Northern Illinois. Years of taking peoples bagged leaves in the fall and having a tree service drop off a dump truck load of rotting chipped limbs every Spring and I have soil that is amazing to grow in. I can crawl on my hands and knees and Soil is like a fluffy sponge!!!

Thank you for a great explanation! The diagrams next to soil specimens and props were very helpful.

Nice job mate. Your enthusiasm is wonderful.

Awesome video! Thank you so much for sharing!

Your videos are great mate. Really appreciate them and the effort.

I've watched about a dozen of your video's. You put a LOT of hard work and effort into sharing your knowledge. I appreciate it so much. I'm going to put all of your knowledge to work. Starting now (before Christmas) to spread some straw over an area that has never been a garden before. Then this spring I"m hoping for the best and with confidence I know the next year will be even better. THANK YOU

excellent video! thank you for taking the time to create a brilliant visual that we can relate to.

Thank you in advance for your help. The beds have not been worked since the summer of 2015. I filled the raised beds with 50/50 garden soil and organic compost, originally when constructed in 2013. I have added my own compost made from grass clippings, coffee grounds, chicken manure, and chopped up stalks and leaves of vegetables. Last summer due to health issues, I was unable to plant/work my beds. Now, in the past year they are filled with weeds. I live near Houston, Tx. Earlier this summer, we had a long session of flooding rains from May through almost the end of June followed by very hot humid weather. We have just begun experiencing temperatures in the 50s and 60s in the last 1 1/2 weeks. I am committed to organic gardening only. The weeds have taken over the soil in the garden beds. I have never used cover crops in the past, but I will in the future. What would you suggest--I live 20 miles south of Houston, TX?