best practice for planting into wood chips

We are currently preparing our perennial garden space.  I was hoping to do more conventional raised beds filled with hugel materials, then compost, but couldn't justify the expense of wood and siding as we are trying to push a great deal of infrastructure ahead all at once.  I'm settling for these slight terraces on contour that may or may not end up becoming permanent.  The plants that need homes this spring are thornless blackberries, raspberries, and rhubarb.  I have some wood chips (and may end up with another load before too long), and was hoping to get some composted cow manure from the neighbor but haven't heard back from him and don't want to be pushy.  Since I have wood chips, I'm happy to mulch with them, and even start building up bed space however I know that most things do not necessarily thrive in wood chips alone.  Our soil is pretty greasy clay, which is doing pretty well with the exception of needing some nitrogen (per extension soil testing).  I have some alfalfa pellets, bone and blood meal mixed up that I'm sprinkling down before I plant anything, but was wondering if maybe around each plant I should dump part of a bag of compost to nestle the roots in, surround and mulch with wood chips, and then sprinkle the fertilizer mixture over the top?  I'm setting up drip irrigation this year knowing that we're likely to have drier than "normal" root zones without much organic matter to hold moisture.  Area is a gentle slope.  (all the pink flags are marking out contours, I still need to haul more downed tree chunks to build additional terraces.

I love what you are doing! I'm in nearly the exact same situations here in north/central/eastern KY and doing a lot of trial and error. I totally understand the challenges associated with cost, effort, and time - juggling the 3 is tough, but fun!

I think you are right in thinking that adding some compost along with every bed established to start is a good idea - I also like the final mulch of wood chips. I'm learning that old straw/hay is pretty good as mulch but here the wind is very strong and can easily wipe out an afternoons effort of mulching and scatter it about if I spread it down dry...so I'm leaning more and more towards kind of a combo of the two if that makes sense. Basically trying to use the cheapest and most local resources I can find. I also need to get with the neighbors on their cow manure supply!! Cow farms everywhere around here!

The main issue I find was that even in places that appeared to be good soil, I find lots of rock just underneath the surface. It's led me to using the tractor and ripper to go over areas first, then where I want my beds (I use a sight level to get as close to contour as possible) I go through by hand with a broad fork to extra loosen and remove the leftover rocks from the tractor passes, then next step is to bring in topsoil I shave off other areas of the land where I have been attempting road projects. etc. because like you, loooots of thick clay under that thin layer...then I splurged this year and bought a load of "leaf compost" to get started, from a landscape supply company and I apply a few inches of that, do my planting, then mulch with old hay/straw and now leaning towards the wood chips like mentioned above. I picked up a load of chips last week.

I recently bought a dumping trailer which has made sourcing supplies and getting them on my own time much easier. Both these loads I picked up myself and hope in the future I can find more cheap/free things to grab. It's actually a nice break from all the work to just drive and get materials, even though I spend money on fuel it saves a bit of delivery fees and gives me time to think and rest.

Take all that for what it's worth, hopefully it helps in some way, sounds to me like you are on the right track. I have ruled out actual wood-framed raised beds here just because I feel like it's a lot of extra work to build them and if I can design things properly then the good soil I'm trying to build shouldn't really go anywhere far away, and it makes things easier to change/adjust in the future. I've been thinking in the steepest areas, or definite borders just stacking up rocks I find in the general area seems to help with containment.

I forgot to attach the pics, everyone loves pics so here goes. First things in, sugar snap peas! I started with trying to do as little work as possible but realized I better just start getting deep because clay/rocks everywhere made it nearly impossible to plant anything thinking about baby roots trying to find space to expand :/

Rock walls are kind of pretty and functional but it's not really by choice lol they are here so have to do something with them!

Laurel,

I, too, have some pretty thick clay and in the past I have been in need of fill but didn’t want to pay for it.  My solution was to dump in a bunch of hardwood mulch/wood chips, much as you have done.  And also like yourself, I dug out little fertile holes and backfilled with a much better soil just for planting.

The wood chips will shrink and reduce in volume over time so they may need to be topped off from time to time.  Also, you may wish to encourage decomposition of those chips and there are several ways to accomplish that goal.

Overall I you have a great plan!

Eric

Cole Tyler wrote:I love what you are doing! I'm in nearly the exact same situations here in north/central/eastern KY and doing a lot of trial and error. I totally understand the challenges associated with cost, effort, and time - juggling the 3 is tough, but fun!

I think you are right in thinking that adding some compost along with every bed established to start is a good idea - I also like the final mulch of wood chips. I'm learning that old straw/hay is pretty good as mulch but here the wind is very strong and can easily wipe out an afternoons effort of mulching and scatter it about if I spread it down dry...so I'm leaning more and more towards kind of a combo of the two if that makes sense. Basically trying to use the cheapest and most local resources I can find. I also need to get with the neighbors on their cow manure supply!! Cow farms everywhere around here!

The main issue I find was that even in places that appeared to be good soil, I find lots of rock just underneath the surface. It's led me to using the tractor and ripper to go over areas first, then where I want my beds (I use a sight level to get as close to contour as possible) I go through by hand with a broad fork to extra loosen and remove the leftover rocks from the tractor passes, then next step is to bring in topsoil I shave off other areas of the land where I have been attempting road projects. etc. because like you, loooots of thick clay under that thin layer...then I splurged this year and bought a load of "leaf compost" to get started, from a landscape supply company and I apply a few inches of that, do my planting, then mulch with old hay/straw and now leaning towards the wood chips like mentioned above. I picked up a load of chips last week.

I recently bought a dumping trailer which has made sourcing supplies and getting them on my own time much easier. Both these loads I picked up myself and hope in the future I can find more cheap/free things to grab. It's actually a nice break from all the work to just drive and get materials, even though I spend money on fuel it saves a bit of delivery fees and gives me time to think and rest.

Take all that for what it's worth, hopefully it helps in some way, sounds to me like you are on the right track. I have ruled out actual wood-framed raised beds here just because I feel like it's a lot of extra work to build them and if I can design things properly then the good soil I'm trying to build shouldn't really go anywhere far away, and it makes things easier to change/adjust in the future. I've been thinking in the steepest areas, or definite borders just stacking up rocks I find in the general area seems to help with containment.

Ugh, yes, SO MUCH ROCK.  We are in Corinth, which I am told is known for its hills and its rocks.  It's rare to dig a hole very deep without hitting rocks, but at least the garden area has somewhat deep soil and most of the big rocks are either at the surface or far enough down they don't get in the way.

I did kind of a “cardboard snorkel” method in my fresh chip beds. Pulled chips away from the planting site, put a small bottomless cardboard box on the exposed ground, added soil amendments and made sure to mix them down into the subsoil a bit, then pulled the wood chips back around the cardboard box. Plant in the box, which is now a little island of soil that should get a plant by until the surrounding area has a chance to break down and become better soil.

Matt Todd wrote:I did kind of a “cardboard snorkel” method in my fresh chip beds. Pulled chips away from the planting site, put a small bottomless cardboard box on the exposed ground, added soil amendments and made sure to mix them down into the subsoil a bit, then pulled the wood chips back around the cardboard box. Plant in the box, which is now a little island of soil that should get a plant by until the surrounding area has a chance to break down and become better soil.

This is crafty, I really like that idea.  Thanks!