Fatal Wood Chip Gardening Mistakes Beginners Are Making - Back To Eden Gardening 

After watching the Back to Eden video several times I ordered woodchips from a local tree service company. I also ordered a load of mushroom compost and hauled several trailer loads of horse manure. 3" of mushroom compost, 3" of horse manure, and 6" of woodchips went to the garden area. This was in August. We planted the garden the following May. By that time the pile had shrunk to half its original depth. We dug down until we hit the compost level and planted our seeds and plants directly into that. The result was the best garden we have ever had. Almost zero weeds, very little watering, and garden bounty. Our corn harvest was the most amazing. Nearly every ear was completely filled out to the very end and the ears were large. Our potato plants were nearly three feet tall. We harvested nearly 300 pounds in an area of about 600 square feet. That was a number of years ago. This is the ONLY way to garden.

There’s hours and hours (weeks, as you say) of video info about wood chips. Excellent job of summing it all up in less than 10 minutes! One more point is that the woodchips mixed with manure will draw red worms, the ultimate composting machines.

We started our garden in US midwest zone 5. Im a senior and Ive waited my entire to have a veg garden. Our plot is heavy sand and nothing would grow. In Fall 2016 we laid out one 4 x 20’ row. We first laid down cardboard, watered it well, then put down compost, organic blood and bone meal, a mix of leaves and grass, two large bags of garden soil (because we had them on hand) then the wood chips. In spring 2017 we were amazed at the number of large worms in the new bed. The moisture was also amazing. We planted tomatoes and green peppers. They grew fantastic. My neighbor who is an avid gardener and grew up on a farm was so surprised that my tomatoes were so nice, evenly colored and no cracks. We used two 60 gallon water barrels the entire summer of 2017 in only the very driest times. We only amended the soil because we did not want to wait two years. I was soo pleased that in spring 2017 we set about adding two more rows in the same layering order. I planted kitchen white potatoes that had been let to get long eyes on them. I also used this layering method with light wood chips for beans and cukes. Besides the plants in the first row we SUCCESSFULLY grew beans, cukes, yellow squash, huge zucchini, carrots, potatoes, spinach and garlic which was planted Nov 2016. We could not have been happier. The biggest surprise was the potatoes that we just used as a test. We got 10lbs of nice clean medium sized potatoes out of 5 wasted pieces I cut up from what I had in a bag. Buy the end of 2017 we had covered the entire fenced in garden with the Back to Eden method and had also set up two long beds for herbs outside the garden. I cannot say enough about this method. I learned from Paul Gautchy Ruth Stout and several others who had failures, successes and even those who went into the science of BTE and sort of put the information together. We could not be happier. Cardboard is plentiful at recycle dumpsters in shopping centers and just for the asking at stores. If you want to start producing from your garden right away you will need to buy amendments but it is well worth it not to have to till. We are selling our brand new tiller. Never had to use it!!!!

Excellent video...should be automatic viewing after watching the "back to eden" documentary!

Great info! Paul does sometimes put uncomposted chips on but the chips have green leaves in them, not brown, so they break down quickly. Not to mention the fact that he's layering it on top of already composted chips with all the enzymes and earthworms that help it to break down quickly. So one way that people can get it started quickly without animal manure is to ensure that their woodchip pile is mixed with plenty of GREEN leaves. I had an arborist dump a load of chips on my property that happened to have lots of green material in it. I was AMAZED at how fast they broke down, and that's why! :) This is definitely a subject that needs clarification. Thank you so much for making this video!!

Thank you so much for taking so much of your time to help out with this clarification. You have really cut down thousands of hours for many of us farmers. All the best from Kenya! Love your channel

When I was a teenager I grew San Marzano tomatoes and most of them died prematurely. My father covered my garden with wood chips in the autumn and by accident, the following year I had so many tomatoes I didn’t know what to do with them. The dead tomatoes were covered with chips and a year later they grew beautifully.

I hate when people spend the time to make great and informative videos and people make harsh comments about it. Thank you for this video. Is English your first language because your command of the language is impeccable. Thank you for a very nice video.

Thank you so much! You just stopped me from making a huge mistake! I just got a pile of wood chips that I was going to put straight into my garden. I am going to put them into my chicken coop first before using them in the garden. Wow so thankful I watched your video! Justin Rhodes has his chickens in his wood chips. I can't believe I missed that important step! Thank you so very much!

Hello Simeon, great info. I think that ones climate should also be considered along with annual rain fall when doing the Eden garden. The fella who pioneered the idea lives on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state. The average rainfall is 17 inches (43 centimeters) and average temperature is around 50 degrees (10 Celsius). If you lived in a much warmer climate for instance you would need to add a lot more water through the season to keep the wood chips moist enough to break down.

Folks need to remember that the video documentary Back to Eden Garden film was not done by Paul, but rather a couple college students for a project. They came to him. He is not a professor of agriculture. He's a humble man who happens to be a master gardener. He did the video in accordance with the outlook of the student's project, they called the shots. Since that video he has done garden tours of his garden every summer for those who wish to come learn, in those much more details of the hows and whys are discussed. Many youtubers have filmed these tours and posted them for years now. One such youtuber I have enjoyed has been L2survive. All the points mentioned in this video have been shared though those garden tour videos in great detail, plus a whole not more. If you have not watched those you should. One more thing to remember, Paul has been working on his garden for over 30 years. You will not have his kind of results in a mere 4 years. He is trying to teach what has taken him all those years to learn. No matter how good a teacher is, it is nearly impossible to boil down 30 plus years of wisdom into one two hour video... Especially if you are not a person who is a teacher by trade. Many many times in those garden tours Paul has said that what he means by wood chips is the whole chipped plant including the needles, leaves, twigs and branches, with the green intact. Thorough instructions have been given by Paul in many videos over the years. If you have not looked and found them, that is not Paul's failing. Now that you know those videos are out there, and I mean years worth, happy hunting. Chears.

I just started collecting wood chips for my garden 15 year's ago I only just heard of back to eden! My main reason to collect wood chips fresh, dry and partially rotted was dry because it is light for collecting on bicycle and for the brown part of hot composting and for cooking and making biochar in a wood gas stove. The fresh stuff I use for paths and mulch, and the partially rotten stuff I specifically collected for mycelial growth! Not sure if back to eden is good but wood chips in any form have untold amazing uses in the garden!

Good advice! I realized the exact same point as I watched how various plants reacted to my supply of wood chips. I did an exhaustive search for all natural not colored triple shredded all hardwood wood chips. I paid $22 per yard and spread over 12 yards in my garddns. The results have been magnificent. Where I used mulched hardwood leaves and yard wastes I had different but also good results. I also think that many people don't realize that in order to plant into a wood chipped garden you need to clear away the chips and plant into the soil beneath the wood chip surface. Leave a little cleared space around the plant initially and as the plants take to the transplanted location you can slowly backfill right up to the plants. It's been a game changer for me and I have plans to increase my garden sizes by laying down more woodchips this spring.

Its very simple. Mimic the forest. Burnt wood, rotten wood, fungus, wood chips, leaves, animal manure, ect ect.

2 years later and this is still helping clear up a lot for me! Thank you so much for your time.

Good clear information. No bloat banter, just the facts. Love it.

SO SO VERY helpful Simeon. I saw the Back to Eden documentary and really left with the impression that the pile of shredded wood and leaves etc. was all that was needed to cover a garden.

This type of detailed info is so important to spell out. Wood chips alone dumped deeply in the garden is a recipe for short term nitrogen starvation. I do think dumping wood chips deeply is a good 3 year plan for amazing soil WITH a beautiful top mulch, increased soil life and resulting soil conditioning. Valuable.

This is the best explanation I've seen so far on the Back to Eden method. I have experimented with it, but mostly I do sheet mulch. I moved to an acre, had a ton of cardboard moving boxes, two pooping horses, and a eucalyptus tree that decided to lose a huge branch the day after I closed escrow. Problems turned to solution with sheet mulching... laid down the cardboard, put on a layer of fresh manure and covered it with chips. I did a lot of tree planting the first two years, and where I sheet mulched the trees did really well, and where I didn't a greater percentage of the trees died the first year because of summer heat and drought. Where the ramial chips were piled waiting to be spread and never was spread became beautiful compost after a few years. Had a lot of mushrooms in the chips the first winter! So I planted in it or spread the wealth this year. Happy fungus to you.

One part of my garden was filled with weeds and grass, so I did the lazy gardener's way - I put a layer of box cardboard, then a layer of coarse woodchips about 2 to 3 inches thick on top of the cardboard last summer. This early June I brought two tomato seedlings, mixed some kitchen compost, peat moss, horse manure and Epsom salt, remove the bottom leaves from the seedlings and buried each sideway in a small hole I dug in the cardboard woodchip so most of the stem was buried in the ground, then put the compost manure mix on top, and cover them with woodchips. That ground, though no more weeds under the cardboard, was not fertile. I could tell by the color and texture of the soil. It was light sandy brown color and had much sand. I gave not much hope for a good harvest, only that the seedlings don't die. After the initial irrigation for the first three weeks, I gave up watering them. Just let the natures do its work. It is too much work for me to drag the garden hose all of the way to the other side of the yard. Both seedlings are now more than 5 feet tall, have so many branches and are loaded with tomatoes. I just harvested the first one today - fully ripe crimson red, soft and full of tomato aroma - barely two months after putting down the seedlings. I never had a harvest this good and this quick. Never underestimate the power of woodchips and un-disturbed weeds. There are amazing secrets down there.

A video that explains the pros and cons of different wood chips. Like types of trees, wood chip size and it's most beneficial application. That would make a great video.

Very helpful video, I was about to cover my front garden beds with raw woodchip hoping to grow some edibles next year. Now I'll use the woodchips in a hot compost bin along with dry leaves, manure and garden/kitchen scraps then in the winter use that to cover my front beds. I'm in Australia so it's summer here. Thanks. I'm glad I could learn from your mistakes instead of making them myself.

I live in iowa we get a lot of rainfall and heat in the summer. In may i bought several bags of organic woodchips. Pretty sure they were cedar too. Which were very hard to find. Most bags of woodchips are not organic. I looked for some that were not in bags but could not find any in the time i had to construct my garden. I dont have nor know anyone with a chipper. But as it turns out Im very glad I bought them in bags cause we had a happy accident. I had a hard time getting through all the bags right away and some sat in the sun and rain for 1-2 months. By the time i got to them they were already starting to break down into compost. The clear plastic bags sucked up the rain and intensified the heat. Loved it and will try it again next yr for my very small garden. Ive been gardening for 15 yrs and it has been a real treat to not have to weed constantly. I also love the fact my garden is producing well into the fall. In the past my plants would be drying out by now and i would be rushing to pick the last of my garden now and most plants would already be done for the season. This yr i think ill try a fall succession. my garden is 12 inces off the ground and the heat from the woodchips has kept everything grean and continues to produce new buds even now. Im sure a plastic covering and occassional watering with a hose would have the same effect as the bags. Btw these were large thick woodchips which broke down in only 1-2 months with no other ingrediant then rain and sun.

Just great--thanks fir deconstructing why the components of compost are so valuable and so ready. Soooo many of us find out each fact piecemeal, about how grinding up a ziplock baggue full of egg shells to powder saves 2yrs wait, how blending rotting banana/apple/cantaloupe peels saves 3months...and now you telling us about wood chips take 2,3yrs and even then, need to be mixed with green leaves and branches or else it finally breaks down only to sawdust. *The mixed variety if all this us compost, I never knew this, never knew that all those patches if bark weren't useable THIS SEASON...in fact to add, even those little standby backup for day flowers, of time-release bead fertilizer are almost useless for the final third weeks of your growing season as they dissolve too late. Thanks, you made so much sense, so logical.

Good info. I knew this not sure why I always knew this. Maybe because we use to cheat and go into the woods and remove already composted material from the forest floor to build our soil. It was really a thrifty way instead of using peat. Then we would used raw chips on top and in the walking paths to hold moisture in our clay soil. This channel get better and better!

Another mention for Charles Dowding! Look up his No Dig method using a layer of compost as much. This was a good video here. Good job explaining the differences and time needed!

Wow this video is extremely helpful! Very subtle things you pointed out but they are very critical to success of growing things. Thank you very much best video ever

I would just like to thank you so very much for sharing what you’ve learned from all of your hard work. Your wisdom means a great deal to me. I compost all of my leaves into leaf mold and grass clippings on my place and have been thinking about chipping all of the limbs now.

I added 6” of raw wood chips on top of my garden and had excellent results in the first year. I think a lot depends on what’s under those chips. I had an established garden with decent soil so in my case the chips aging on top of it did nothing but help feed the plants and draw in the worms, lots and lots of worms. So I wouldn’t say you can’t expect results in year one unless your only using raw chips on dead ground....

Exactly as my grandmother taught me. Well done!

Bro, you saved my ass! I ran out and bought a shredder chipper and chipped all my branches thinking I would put it as mulch, but saw this just before I acted. Thank you!

Thank you for clearing up the different components and how they work,enjoy your channel keep up the great job!!!

Thanks buddy and thank you for your clean cut english, i am humbled. 🇸🇪🇺🇸💓

I sure do appreciate the clarification! Thank you!

Thanks for clearing things up for us. You will be saving us loads of headache. I will treat our wood chips differently now. Bernie.

Totally agree! I also watched Back To Eden years ago and had my gardens covered in raw wood chips. Same as you, I quickly realized that my veggie would not do well. Last year, I had the trucks dump all of the wood chips in the chicken run. Within the end of the summer, everything had become beautiful compost that I could apply without even having to sift It!!!

I found this very helpful. 😁 You taught me just what I needed to learn before using this massive pile of oak chips and leaves I’ve been gifted. So far it’s been mostly used as path material, buried deep, or as mulch over cardboard on unused sections of the beds. You got me thinking about options available to help the remainder of the pile compost a little faster. Thankfully, I have a good supply of manure to assist the transformation.

This is really useful information. Great addition to Back to Eden video. Also I thought that Paul in on the videos mentioned that he got the wood chips and let it rest for a year, until he planted something. After which in the beginning his crop wasn't great but improved over time every year.

Fantastic video! Very clearly explained! Love that you don’t personally attack Paul & Back to Eden, instead clarify the process and share your own successes and mistakes with this method.

Thanks so much I’m just getting ready to create my first no dig garden. Your helpful information will spare me time. Thank you for all your help.

There's no substitution for composting. I set up compost bins that were mostly chipped branches and leaf mold with some food scraps and after a few months it looked like what you are call compost but after a year the core was like the richest soil you ever saw. I screened it to get out the most degraded compost and returned the rest to the pile. You have to look at the stuff in the middle as undigested food. The compost material is digested and ready for the body/plants to use. An excellent explanation of a common error. It's like people complaining about the first 2 or 3 years of adding in biochar hurt their plants then things got dramatically better. Biochar is a sponge and it soaks up nutrients so you need to soak it in compost first. You have to think about how available nutrients are to the plant. The middle pile would be zero, the left hand pile would be minimal while the right hand pile is actual fertilizer. People want a magic bullet but generally it always comes back to time. Adding in animals does make a huge difference but compost always needs time.

I'm glad I saw this before I got too optimistic about "wood chips". Thanks for the clarification!

Thank you so much for the clarification! I’ve been looking everywhere for specific details about wood chips/vs composted wood chips.

This is priceless info for new and old gardeners! Thanks! I only wish I knew this 3 and a half years ago but I guess I'm learning the hard way as well.

I posted a video of my 100% leaf-soil , and then this video shows up in my feed! Great info!

Totally agree and happy chickens help big time. ;)

Simeon, you saved us! Thank you so much for sharing. You do an awesome job on all your vids- extremely helpful.

I'm on my second year of using woodchips and I'm loving it. The soil is super rich and I am looking forward to seeing how much better everything will grow this year. I definitely noticed a big difference last year from the two previous years, I'm on my fourth year of gardening. I started out last year by tilling the soil one last time, then I laid down newspaper and added composted woodchips I got from the city where they allow citizens to dump their brush and pickup mulch for free. This year planting has been much easier, just have to rake off the big chips on top and hoe a row, sow some seeds and rake the chips back on top. I water every other day or so until everything gets going, then I water once a week unless it rains. In the heat of the summer I might water two or three times a week. Before the wood chips, I watered everyday, and twice on hot days. I can concur with what this video teaches. My friend who told me about Paul Gauchie, started his garden last year. He didn't till and just put down freshly ground woodchips he got dumped for free by a tree trimming crew. Although he did get some good vegetables, he didn't have near the yeild that I did. But for the amount of work he put into it compared to the amount of work I put into my first year, he did much better for his first year of gardening than I did.

The fastest way we have found is to mix manure with the chips/leaves. Our orchard we use the chips mainly.

Awesome info.... thank you for sharing..👍👍👍 makes sense

You are explaining perfectly for new gardeners. Also Mr. Salatin uses the animals to directly amend any bedding and the pigs to mix it in the spring by layering grain to ferment in the layers of organics, bedding and squashed, broken down manure, a system made in heaven for any hard working person of the land, also like you do, smart, one less chore you need to do, as all involved, the animals would be producing manure/fertilizer anyways. I understood Paul G. because my dad has done this method since he was a child (he passed in his 80's), taught to him by his dad, then to me. We had huge piles of chipped wood with all leaves, buds, pine cones everything in it, another pile with just chipped wood then piles of cow, rabbit, horse, chicken manures all separated in their own piles, acidity content and such, then piles of grass clippings, pine needles, wood ash, all in separate piles once again, a huge compost piles of vegtable scraps, eggshells, etc. We kept bags of, bone meal, dried blood, but no chemical fertizer. I always knew what to put in garden to start one off and then to grow the plants in each area with their necessary needs. You watch the plants, they will tell you from the day they sprout what they need (you have to learn basic knowledge of what you are growing first, what are their basic requirements), then tweek by where you live. Most any soil can be made great soil by what is added into it, then on top of, to become fertile. I laugh when I see plant and tomatoe trellis' at stores, just my tomato plants will grow 7-8 feet tall, I have made 4x4 square holed, 52 inch tall horse fence circles, 4 foot diameters, stacked, one on top of the other to try to contain only 1 plant. Grow what you like first and learn those plants well the first or second years, then on to plants you want to sell. Once you obtain this visceral knowledge of what the plants are asking from you can learn to grow a few in demand crops and grow them well so you can promise a steady supply, then add on if you so choose. This way you will not waste your time or your money. If you trully have a love, a passion for gardening, do not mind getting dirty, not just for money but that will come if you so choose, it will just come naturally, it is a very rewarding and a peaceful pusuit. It can be done organically, it doesn't take any more work than using chemicals. Remember just sticking things in the ground and expecting a miracle in todays depleted and sometimes poisoness areas is no longer a feasabilty, not saying never, just highly unlikely. I can grow anything I have ever tried but my one failing is those darn run of the mill yellow squash, they will just never grow to adulthood without turning hard as a brick. I can grow any kind of squash, small to huge ones but those, forget about it, good thing they are not a favorite of mine and have little nutrition compared to many others. Finally, people that have a passion to help others understand and are not natural teachers sometimes in their enthusiasm tell the steps A, B, C, D, E, F, and then jump to J, K, L, M, N, -- S,T, U, V, an so on without reasoning in the few small steps missing that are obvious to them, are not obvious to others. I am so glad to watch Paul G., Mr. Salatin and your videos, everyone can always learn something no matter how experienced in one field, can always gleen something in another as I have been doing. Thanks, Good Luck to all.

Thank you for this very useful information. I just had a pile of new wood chips delivered and I was about to top my raised garden boxes with it. Thank God I watched your video now 😧

This was VERY helpful. Well clarified 👍🏾

Im getting woodchips (left pile) delivered for free any time I see a truck in my area. My backyard is almost fully covered and all my fruit trees are doing great. I use it mainly to fight evaporation and to soak up more rain in the landscape. The compost is a bonus, but I know it will come especially with the chickens doing their part. FYI in my eyes those 3 piles of material are woodchips, sawdust, and unfinished compost.

Thank you for showing and explaining the difference. So many people condemn the system without ever having made it to the compost stage. And that Paul has had years to get to his final results.

Yes! I discovered the exact same information. Agree 100% with you. Thanks very much for sending this out. Well done.

If you combine the Ruth Stout Method with the "Back to Eden" method with wood chips you get a pretty amazing result. The Hay from Stouts method tends to break down quicker than the wood chips so it feeds the plants quickly while the wood chips put down on top of the hay break down slower but you still have that layer of protection against weeds. I'm still testing this combination but so far its been wonderful.

You kept me from making a big mistake! Thank you!

Thank you. This was very informative. I am so confused about starting the back to eden garden lol. I’ve watched many videos as well as the documentary regarding it and I’m still rethinking my strategy. Thanks for explaining this method. Take care-Debbie

I know you don't respond to old videos but I hope some way you find yourself reading this because I would like to thank you. I watch very few videos multiple times but this has been one that I do watch over and over. No, it's not technical this or that. It's just plain everyday talk that's very important. If you don't start right, seldom will you end right. I planned to haul in tons and tons of wood chips and I would have been disappointed the next gardening season when my crops failed. Now, thanks to you I know to take the chips, added composted chicken litter or cow manure (easiest for me to get) and work them together so that next gardening season my garden bed is ready to grow what I put in it. I thinking of putting a layer of cardboard down also (to encourage earthworms) - below the composting wood chip/manure level. Thank you for saving me heartache, headaches, time and money. ~Sherrie from South Carolina, USA

Wood chips with the leaves and twigs chipped in are known as Arborist's chips here in the states.

Thankyou so much! !

This really helped us and at a.perfect time because we plan on buying a new house and we were just going to throw woodchips to our garden. Now we know what we need to do. Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge with us.

Thank you for putting this clarification out there, very important to know😃

There is another way to speed up this breakdown process and I currently use it in my vegetable garden. On bare soil, I put two or more inches of fresh compost down and then add the wood chips on top. This has the benefit of adding lots of microbes, bacteria and fungi, which do the breaking down into compost. I also use light sprinklings of compost, shredded leaves, coffee grounds, etc... throughout the year right on top. I never completely cover the wood chips. When you water or it rains, the small pieces go through the big chips to the bottom, which once again feeds all the critters down below. When I plant, I pull the chips back and plant in the soil. When the plants are big enough, I push the chips back in place. I have had no problems with nitrogen issues and I think that is due to the roots being below where the breakdown is happening. I also live in the same area as Paul, and we have the added benefit of lots of rain. As a side note, I never use just cedar chips due to compounds that inhibit the growth of other plants, but there are small amounts mixed in with the other chips. I hope this helps.

Thank you so much! Very informative!!!

that was an excellent clarification. well done sir.

Valuable information - great job! Thanks for sharing this with the rest of us!

Great information...we put lots of wood chips in our garden this year...I think we jumped the gun tilling our chips...this will certainly help my soil for sure!

When I shred wood (branches really), I add a good quantity of branches with leaves and all, and even just big green leaves (I live in a region where we have palm trees). iow I keep a balance between the carbon and nitrogen. Works a treat, pile always goes straight to heat.

Thank you sooo much! I was just heading out to put plain woodchios down today. Soo glad I saw this first, now I'll add the massive piles of leaves that I have right next to the chips. I would've been so upset to know I had the material but missed the knowledge. Glad I subbed! Keep putting out the great videos! ❤

Thank You!! I think this is excellent information for those struggling to get the Back to Eden gardnng method going.

Homesteader science is my favorite topic. I just have to hear it with a Swedish accent to clarify things sometimes. I can get free wood chips but when I realized how long it would take to get good soil underneath them I had to stop and think again. I would love to try the Ruth Stout method gardening using h a y as a thick mulch material but I can't get free hay. So I'm back to square one trying to turn this rented yard into a garden with no tilling.

Great clarification for everyone, but I guess I never thought of Woodchips as anything other than a mulch. It's meant to be nothing more than a buffer between the top soil it is covering and itself. It breaks down over time, but your fertilization still need to come from things such as compost teas, and I frankly recommend (especially here in Thailand) to do a one-time dig (down 12 inches from the soil surface) and mix in Biochar. They cover with either contractors paper or some sort of corrugated cardboard, and then - Woodchips. Let that sit for one year (or minimum 6 months) and you will have permanently improved your soil.

Thank you. Excellent and very clear explanation! I know that the finish product is used for gardening.

Of course... Now it all makes sense! Well done!! Thank you!!!

Thanks Simeon! Actually used raw chips in my Indiana garden for a covering after everything was planted and it worked great. (You can't help but be a good gardener there!)Then I moved to New Mexico and never thought about moisture being very necessary. We had an 1/8 of an acre garden and the chips just sat there because there wasn't enough moisture to help break them down! We even tried watering them but the moisture couldn't reach to the bottom of the chips. We had first soaked the ground them put 5 layers of newsprint down (we came into rolls of it), soaked that, then woodchips. We would water them. Within ONE day even the ground under everything was bone dry! It was a mess. Only our fruits worked that year-raspberries, blackberries, jujube trees, and most of the strawberries. Now we are back in Indiana on 2 acres with a CSA. Chips are great for the pathways and will now go in with the chickens. Thanks for a great video.

Interesting. The book "the Humanity Handbook" by Joseph Jenkins offers a description of the mechanics of composting. While it is concerned primarily with the composting of human waste, the same princilpes apply to all composting. At my farm in British Columbia, Canada I composted literally tons of wood chips from (primarily) alder trees. Here in Việt Nam where I presently live I use the bark from acacia trees, both as a mulch and for some of the carbon content of my compost. In order to compost properly a thorough understanding of the process is necessary. As an aside, I have been doing this for the past fifteen years. Best wishes to all

You answered a very complex question. Thank you.

THANK YOU!! I wondered why so many people were complaining about why it wouldn't work for them. Now I know because of your clarification. Bless you!!♡♡♡

Have you read any of Charles Dowding’s books? It’s all about good compost. He makes hot compost, which has an added bonus of killing weed seeds.

There is a guy in the uk who does no dig with compost making up the biggest percent of his soil his name is Charles dowding

Thanks for sharing and clarifying! I did watch the documentary a couple years ago also and was left confused on that part also.

Amazing how when we follow the system God created we end up with amazing results! After years of layers of dead fall leaves, grass clippings, and rotted wood chips I can crawl around on the softest garden soil ever! And occasional manure when I could spread some before a rain SO my suburban neighbors would not complain. What a change from hard clay! The soil is alive and producing life and life giving.

I put about 24 inches of fresh wood chips (with leaves and all) on top of my concrete-like clay soil. Within weeks it was down to about 10-12 inches. I am about to add alfalfa nitrogen to it and then I'm going to plant into it by making trenches filled with mushroom compost. We'll see what happens but I I think the Alfalfa and nitrogen will help that wood chips break down faster and I just think it's going to do great. I'll keep you all posted :-)

Great explanation of the three different media types. One other aspect to consider is that when you put down wood chips in the garden it will leech or suck up the Nitrogen from the ground, so be prepared to add a Nitrogen amendment!! I have raised rows with the wood chips being used as the walking paths and to separate each row, in addition this is also working as an erosion control barrier because my garden is on a slope. Thank you for sharing and posting.

Thanks for making this video! I am using the Back to Eden gardening method on my property. My fruit trees benefited from putting wood chips on them immediately. My newly created garden area has had wood chips on them for less than one year, and only okra has done well. I am not as discouraged after watching your explanation about allowing the wood chips to deteriorate. That makes a lot of sense.

When I first started with the wood chips that got delivered I put it around my trees then watered. I saw within a week they went "Ahhhh". It shielded the roots from the hot summer sun in Florida. This spring we got so many flowers and I'll be getting fruit from the banana, lemons, navel orange and papaya. Most of it broke down pretty fast for me. It is such an improvement over sand on top of more sand.

I have a small area where we used to park a car. I covered it with thick newspapers and some cardboard then with wood chips and kept it mostly wet. 2months later I threw rye grass seed and buckwheat. I still water and I've poked several holes with a pitch fork. The rye grass is a beautiful green, the buckwheat is blooming. I planted elderberry, a couple of kale trees, some seeds, tearing below the newspaper. It's far from ready but what I'm growing is doing very well. Maybe by fall I'll be planting seed. Oh and my coffee grinds go out there every week. From Florida sand to what? Only patience will tell.

Thanks Simeon, good clear description. The other key is making sure that you get you woodchips made/delivered during the growing season as without leaves it is no good. We have found that raw woodchips as ground cover in our chicken pens is pretty much good to go after a year as they help break it down, although it is quite fine start with. I think the best thing has to be a combo of composts, groundcover and other tecniques rather than pinning everything on woodchips.

Here on South Africa's high grasslands, for 20 years already, I shred all prunings and branches, thinner than my pinkie, then scatter the shreddings on the lawn before mowing...this mixes tectures and colours. I mulch my beds with this mix. My garden is tropical in lushness. It works!

This is one of the clearest videos on the subject around. GREAT WORK!

EXCELLENT CLARIFICATION!!! I wrote a letter to the editor. Sadly, I used the word, "FECAL" instead of MANURE. I felt slightly embarrassed by this but seeing your video makes me so happy because I wrote about (hay and rabbit poop). lol.

Super erklärt!!!! Vielen Dank - ich habe auch schon sehr viel darüber gelesen und gesehen, dass das oft misinterpretiert wird. Der Stickstoff ist eben doch sehr wichtig ... Liebe Grüße

Good man. Thanks for taking the time to clarify it for us. This is one of the best use of social media.

Thank you so much, I was debating on what to do. I have access to both mulch and wood chips and so I'll put the mulch down and cover with the wood chips.

In fact, the uncomposted wood chips will use up soil nitrogen in order to compost, reducing that plant-necessary nutrient . Better to supply nitrogen using manure or other green material, allow the composting process to complete, and use the resulting compost afterwards. I applaud your video that makes clear the differences between the materials.

Good clarification.

Very well explained, thank you! This is how I understood the documentary as well: only composed wood chips for annual vegetables. I sometimes get people on my permaculture gardening courses who get enthusiastic about this idea but by misinterpreting are set for failure. I use wood chips on paths in my kitchen garden and around trees and bushes - this is where they work best. I did plant some presown pumpkins in the wood chips in the orchard and those did well because their roots go deeper than the interface where composting happens. Plus we used some fermented nettle feed to supply nitrogen.

Thank you so much for making this video. Helps me understand why I am having problems with my plants