Planting directly in wood chips alone - an experiment

Mark Tudor wrote:As long as the roots can reach soil that isn't still actively breaking down carbon via wood chip, then the plant should have the nitrogen it needs to grow. It's my understanding that the more wood still in the grow medium, the more nitrogen those microbes will be using to digest that carbon.

I believe that the Back to Eden method of a thick layer of wood chips is prefaced with "your soil is so hungry that the first 8 inches of wood chips will get eaten up fast, and might only be 2-3" after the first year. Each year as the soil improves, more of what you add will remain, meaning less work over time."(my paraphrased version of what I recall Paul saying)

Those wood chips are tossed on top of your existing soil, but when you plant you pull away the chips to go straight in the soil. Once the plant comes up a little, you push the chips back close to it to limit adjacent weeds. Over time those chips turn into soil and you're adding more to keep 6-8" of chips on top, but the planting is directly in the soil so you always dig away the chips for each plant.

So I would avoid mixing the chips in much at all if you can avoid it, just leave a layer on top which can be broken down by critters you include in the buckets, like worms and other little bugs. I just removed some compost from my old pile today and added fresh greens and browns in, and that pile was literally crawling with life between worms and bugs. A LOT of birds showed up within an hour of me putting that compost on a bed, they saw all the critters too!

Greg Martin wrote:It would also be interesting to see how a nitrogen fixer does relatively in the two media.  Perhaps a pole bean or some peas.

R. Steele wrote:Hi Kai,

I've grown tomatoes in half composted woodchips. They grow fine, but were a little deficient. I never tested to soil to see what caused it, but I suspect it was lack of nitrogen or something was interfering with nitrogen absorption. I should say its been over 30 years since I grew in those chips, so my trouble shooting the deficiency may be off the mark.

The aboundance of certian nutrients available in mostly pure compost, could cause a number of nutrient deficiencies especially with the wood chips being not fully broken down. The plant stems were huge, and they grew tall, but the leaves should have been bigger and overall more robust.

Since to much of certian nutrients like potassium, can block the absorption of other nutrients, its always hard to diagnose such issues without a soil test; however, if you're going to skip the soil test. My suggestion would be to supplement fertalize with nitrogen, and add a sea mineral. Something like blood meal, feather meal and kelp meal supplements will most likely be very beneficial to overall production.

Hope that helps!

Greg Martin wrote:It would also be interesting to see how a nitrogen fixer does relatively in the two media.  Perhaps a pole bean or some peas.

Kai Walker wrote:

R. Steele wrote:Hi Kai,

I've grown tomatoes in half composted woodchips. They grow fine, but were a little deficient. I never tested to soil to see what caused it, but I suspect it was lack of nitrogen or something was interfering with nitrogen absorption. I should say its been over 30 years since I grew in those chips, so my trouble shooting the deficiency may be off the mark.

The aboundance of certian nutrients available in mostly pure compost, could cause a number of nutrient deficiencies especially with the wood chips being not fully broken down. The plant stems were huge, and they grew tall, but the leaves should have been bigger and overall more robust.

Since to much of certian nutrients like potassium, can block the absorption of other nutrients, its always hard to diagnose such issues without a soil test; however, if you're going to skip the soil test. My suggestion would be to supplement fertalize with nitrogen, and add a sea mineral. Something like blood meal, feather meal and kelp meal supplements will most likely be very beneficial to overall production.

Hope that helps!

I am taking pictures every sunday of both.

Right now the ones in the old wood chips are not as green and the one in the garden soil.
But both are growing about the same.

Both plants stressed though as they has blossoms on them when they were 8 inches tall. I pinched off the blossoms on both.

Some could be the huge rains we have been having lately.
In the end I will post those pix for everyone to evaluate.
End meaning when they are about 2 feet tall and have at least one fruit.
Or one of them dies or similar issue.

Kai Walker wrote:I plan on using two 5 gallon buckets to plant tomatoes in. If I cannot obtaine the needed buckets I will resort to another method (plant directly in the ground but for one make a large pit 2 feet deep by 2 feet wide and fill with the wood chips.

One will have decent dirt and the other 3-5 year old rotted wood chips with a few solid chips left in it.

Both will receive the same sunlight and water as needed.

The experiment is to see if tomatoes can grow in rotted wood chips alone vs decent dirt.

The rotted wood chips will come from local yard waste pile. When digging into the pile you can see patches of white material (fungus I presume).

WELL rotted almost to the point of dirt.

No fertilizers of any kind will be added to either.

Your thoughts?

See above update. Had to give them a small fertilizer boost due to extreme rains he received over the past 2 weeks. But I do not plan on making this the norm.

Suggestions?

Tj Jefferson wrote:I have had great success with deep chips and tomatoes. The problem was the full complement of minerals, I had to amend with azomite and Sea-90 and coop poop. Was like hydroponics in chips! After a while i just dug down they can get some soil contact- and they went hog wild. The only problem I had was they were very late as the mulch takes a month to warm up. But they lasted a month longer too! for the suggestion about legumes in chips, I have found none that grow in chips except vetch, and that has its own issues. Sesbania worked too but gracious it gets big.