To till, or not to till?

I have this area between my garage, and apricot trees. I call it my want to be food forest. I have planted a few perennials to go in that direction, but the gophers were very bad, and not much is still alive.  I covered the ground with about 8" to 12" of wood chips two or three years ago.  
We have gotten more rain than the last few years, which is great, but the weeds are so thick you can't even see the wood chips.  I don't till any of my gardens, but I was thinking maybe I should use my little cultivator to till the weeds into the broken down wood chips, then the, put cardboard down, and add new chips. Or should I just put the cardboard on top of the weeds and add wood chips.  I don't have the time or energy to pull all the weeds. I don't want to just add wood chips because the weeds some how manage to grow through the wood chips.  
I just want to get the weeds under control. I like to plant melons, and all my extra veggies in this area.  Would love to hear thoughts, and or suggestions. Thanks

I recommend weedwacking it down if the weeds are tall and voluptuous, then cardboard and chips. I understand why people till, but I think it is to be avoided. And tilling in this situation will likely lead to more weeds

I've never tilled and figure I'll avoid it until I have an overwhelming reason. But if I understand how tillers work and the ground you're describing, it sounds like you have enough wood chips that you could till just in that layer which isn't going to muck up the soil structure below. I don't know if that's the best approach, but it doesn't seem like traditional tilling.

Hi Jen,

Throw me in with the don’t-till-but-build-up crowd.  If it were me, I would either cut down or better yet, pull all those weeds.  As already mentioned I would then lay those weeds on top and cover with cardboard.

Another thought that I might entertain would be to dig fertile holes in all that mulch and plant in those holes.  You could then cover the rest of the garden in cardboard and cover with chips as a weed barrier.

Get me going further and I will start talking about mushrooms which work great as well.

Eric

Thanks everyone.  I should have been more clear. If I used the cultivator, I would only use it on top, mostly to disturb the weeds, trying not to disturb the soil layer.  But maybe I won't.

Eric I still want to try again to grow wine cap.  Like I said we are actually getting rain. I need to trim some of my trees, I was thinking I could use my little chipper, and have some fresh wood chips. Maybe starting earlier, fresh chips, and more moisture and maybe I will succeed this time.  I finally got a comfrey to grow, and survive about 6 months now, so anything can happen.

Thanks again everyone.

I've heard that it might actually kill the weeds better if you just fold them down and put the cardboard right over them. Then the roots will be making efforts to resurrect the still attached upper parts, before sending out new shoots.

A few layers of overlapping cardboard will be much more secure than a single layer.

But if any of the weeds are those species with large root systems or rhizomes that are notorious for coming up through and around cardboard, then there's really no option but to dig them up. I've had that with bindweed and trumpet vine, and I've heard that some types of grass are bad, like bermuda.

If you're not sure, you could just try the cardboard, and after a few weeks, if anything seems to poke through or creep out around, then you'll know what needs to be dug up.

Jen,

Given your willingness, I say let’s try the Wine Caps.  Fresh chips can really make a great substrate.

Eric Hanson wrote:Jen, Given your willingness, I say let’s try the Wine Caps.  Fresh chips can really make a great substrate.

I really like this idea.

For a long time, I did not understand the till or no-till.  Everyone I knew my whole life tilled the soil.

Then I realized that my method of planting was actually no-till.  I used a stick to make a hole and then dropped in the seeds and lightly cover per the seed packet.

Now, I am learning how beneficial no-till is.

The method of using cardboard directly over the weed is working well for me except now that it has gotten into cold weather the weeds are not dying.  The good thing is that at least the weeds are not going to seed.  So this is still a good thing.

Best wishes Jen and happy gardening!

8" to 12" of wood chips three years ago is likely only 2" of chips now, and those chips are well rotted. To act as effective long term weed suppression chips need to be topped up annually, and perennial weeds need to be spot weeded by hand as they appear. It should be easy to spot weld them, if the mulch layer is deep and loose, just by pulling them by hand.

I have about 100m^2 of woodchips around perennial berry bushes, and on paths. Since getting into the pattern of annual topping up, and periodic spot weeding, it has been easy to maintain. When dense weeds get established it requires a fair bit more effort to get it back under control again.

I would just get in a load more chips, strim all the weeds  down to the current soil line, top the area up again with deep chips. You will kill most of the plants, and any that do survive and break through you can hand pull in a few months time. I have gone off using cardboard in my location. I found that many times the mulch/cardboard combo was leaving the soil pretty dry beneath the cardboard. Where the mulch is in direct contact I seem to get better integration of organic material into the soil, through natural biological processes. I think a lot depends on your soil and climate though.

Lastly, I DO use a small mantis tiller in other areas. Perennial weeds establish really fast in our area from blown seeds, and the annual beds do benefit from the tilling, especially when I integrate mulch from the chickens deep litter. I have given up trying to beat thick grass with woodchips, for example. It works better for me to till the grass once. Wait two weeks. Till it again. THEN form the beds and cover the path areas with the wood chips.

Once the initial sod breaking was done subsequent years have been quick and pretty easy to maintain.

Hi Jen,
I will add my vote to all those who suggest simply knocking down the weeds and putting more wood chips over it. I would not even bother with cardboard.

A warning is that if you still have wood chips left from the previous mulch under the weeds, do not till! Wood chips are carbon and need nitrogen to break down. When placed on top, there is only a small portion of the wood chips touching the soil so the nitrogen stealing that some people worry about is not a big deal. However if you till them in, it could cause a low nitrogen problem for a while (some people say for a year).

I have to agree with Michael, it seems like you mulched well at first, but did not top off, so the wood chips as a mulch was reduced each year to where the weeds could take over again. 8-12 inches of wood chips is plenty to take care of most weeds without even needing cardboard, but as Michael mentioned, it will turn into soil with time (one of the good things about this kind of mulch vs plastic), and needs to be added to in order to get the weed blocking benefit.

I converted a small part of a lawn that I know has existed for at least 70 years to a 34' X 65' in the ground vegetable garden. There was only a very thin sod layer that was less than a half inch thick. For years I wondered where the top soil went. I finally came to the realization that over the years the organic matter just disappeared leaving nothing but bare clay. I've been here for 16 years and never bagged out lawn clippings. I did occasionally bag to clean up the many leaves here, but many times just ground them into dust. That organic matter wasn't enough to build any organic matter over my time here.

It's my opinion that if you want to garden in that kind of soil you need immediate relief. Waiting years is no inspiration to grow crops. one needs to see rewards for all the work that we put into our gardening. If I could make enough compost to convert a garden that size I would use compost. In my case I dug in three inches of well composted free aged horse manure and purchased mushroom compost the first year and and another inch the second year; except that where the clay was still clumpy I chopped in more into those spots. This spring I will amend some more with a 3x3x3 foot pile of compost from leaves that will be 18 months old by spring and the added weeds and kitchen scraps. When I run out I'll buy some more mushroom compost which I call mushroom manure; as that's what is is/was.

As far as wood chips go I've found that for years you can't direct seed into the soil you applied wood chips to. The seeds just never germinate. However for some reason tomatoes will volunteer on top of undisturbed wood chips. probably because where that tomato fell there's a large number of seeds. They are good for permanent paths. I also wouldn't recommend wood chips near your house as they attract termites.

Hi John,

You make some good points about growing in wood chips.  Actually, my technique for growing in wood chips actually uses a small amount of topsoil, bagged topsoil, bagged manure or some combination.  

Initially growing in chips can be tricky so I have made fertile holes and fertile trenches for the actual seeding.  My fertile trenches are especially stingy with the topsoil/manure.  Basically my trench is about 2” wide and deep by whatever length I need.  This is just enough soil that the seeds can get sprouted and established.  By the time the roots reach the wood chips the plants and fungi start growing together and then the bedding is very fertile but initially the seeds do need a fine substrate for sprouting.

Good luck!

Eric

Eric
I tried 3 times to get Straight Eight cucumbers, Fordhook Zucchinni, and Costata Romanesco zucchinni to grow from seed in wood chips. The first planting I raked down to the nice soft black compost under any large chips. Nothing grew. The cucumbers finally sprouted with a raking about 16 inch wide down to the same black compost; but by then it was so late that I got very few cucumbers. The zucchinni never did sprout even with rakings about 30 inch in diameter. I usually save seeds from all these vegetables but had to buy seeds for them this year. I lost my line of seeds that I had built for many years.