For 2016 we dared to begin a ‘no-till’ garden. After we attended a Holistic Management course, we learned about this technique. We prayed that God would provide the wood chips and He did! 8 loads of FREE wood chips to cover our 130′ x 40′ garden, and it was an incredible change! Less weeding, no watering, and so many other positive changes in our produce.
Where did we hear about this?
The Back to Eden Film – Paul Gautschi of Washington State, USA has been using this technique of gardening for years with great success. This video gave us the ground work to start looking into converting our garden.
Although just be warned that the video doesn’t show or explain everything you should probably know. Here are some additional resources that you’ll want to look into.
Quick Note: For best results, use a manure based compost for your vegetable garden, and use wood chips for fruit trees.
- L2Survice – Back to Eden FAQ
- YouTube Videos with Thatnub – This gentleman has gone out to Paul’s home multiple times and filmed tours Paul has put on. There are amazing resources in his video’s. A very special thanks goes out to Thatnub and the L2Survive YouTube channel. One day I might do up a bunch of links to specific information in his video’s. But start looking through the tours of Paul’s garden to get more detailed information.
Upgrading our Garden – April 2016
One weekend in April we arranged all the rentals and started moving wood chips out to our garden. 8 loads on the garden and 2 extra’s for future use. Although a lot of resources online suggested putting down newspaper or cardboard first we tried a small sections and the wind was against us. Thankfully we only had enough to cover about a 5′ length of garden. The rest was just straight wood chips. We tried to cover about a 4″-6″ thick bed of wood chips, although through the year we realized there were some spots that didn’t have enough.
We actually had 50km winds a couple weeks after spreading the wood chips and the wind moved piles of wood chips from our garden to the grass around the garden. After being frustrated about this we started to rake them back up to move back on the garden. In the process God let us realize that he was just providing us some extra nitrogen for the garden as all the wood chips we were raking up had piles of grass clippings mixed in them. A blessing in disguise.
It was amazing to see how much moisture was in the covered soil only after a short period of time. You could dig down a couple inches through the wood chips and the soil was moist and warm. Quite the difference of our typical dried out and hard black dirt.
Planting in Wood Chips
Planting in a wood chip garden is very simple. We took a string line to make a straight line across of garden, then dragged a rake or hoe to pull back the wood chips. The seeds are planted directly into the dirt. We would then pull back a small amount of wood chips to cover up the soil. As the plants started to grow large enough we would push more wood chips back into the row to provide more protection.
For 2016 we had enough spring moisture that we didn’t need to water our seeds to get them started. But if the soil is really dry you might have to give the seeds a little help.
Major Differences
It was amazing to see the plants grow. For the 2016 year we DID NOT water our garden once. God provided enough rain through the season and the wood chips helped keep the soil moist the entire year. The plants seemed to have more than enough moisture to produce an abundant harvest.
The lack of weeds in the garden was refreshing! In our previous years of gardening we would always pull out the garden tractor, till up the soil and hand pick the weeds around the plants. If we’d go away for a week or couldn’t get into the garden because of rain the garden would turn into a canola field. 🙁 The woods chips provided a barrier to help slow & stop weeds. We still had weeds come up, but it was so easy to pull them. Most of the time we could take a garden rake and remove the weeds with it, only to push the weed back under the wood chips to decompose. We found out quick the spots where the woods chips were too thin. Anywhere that only had about a 1″ covering seemed to have weeds come through easily. We’ll be adding more woods chips in these area’s for 2017 to help correct this.
Another amazing aspect of the wood chips was the ability to go in the garden at any time. One day we had a 2″ rain fall in the morning and we were walking around the garden in the evening. No muck, no mess…. Amazing.
Harvesting
Most of the garden harvest went as usual, but here are a few things that deserve mention.
Potatoes this year were incredible. Because of the wood chips we were actually able to pull the potato plant out of the wood chips and the bulk of the potatoes would come out with the plant. Whatever potatoes remained in the ground we were able to dig out of the wood chips by hand. By far the easiest potato digging we’ve ever done and no potatoes were stabbed or wounded in the process!
Carrots in our tilled garden typically would grow with odd shapes and ends. With the wood chips, they weren’t packed by the soil and were free to grow straight, just like you see in the grocery store!
Lettuce, kale, and spinach had only one planting for the entire summer and remained sweet! Usually in soil, the roots dry out in the sun unless watered daily. The wood chips provided enough moisture to keep them sweet and juicy! They were also incredibly clean when bringing in to eat. Washing is quick and easy without mud being stuck between the leaves.
Parsley, dill, and basil were great up until the snow hit in October. The warmth from the wood chips kept them alive and well.
