posted 8 years ago
Hola -- fellow Californian here.
Wood chips. I would imagine that there are tree trimmers who are eager to dump a load of wood chips in your driveway for free --- you just need to find them.
There are multiple threads that discuss the wonders of wood chips in the garden. A simple search will find them. Never-the-less, let me summarize the best that chips bring to your garden.
1. Chips make an excellent mulch that slowly breaks down, feeds the soil, feeds the soil biota/worms/microorganisms.
2. Chips quickly create a fungal dominated soil Within 2 years, you'll see the fungal network throughout the chips and soil. Compost is fantastic, as it feeds microbes to your plants. But chips + compost gives them both bacterial microbes and fungi. That's the best of all worlds.
3. Depending on the type of wood and the state of decomposition, chips hold from 6 to 9 times their weight in water. They turn your soil into a giant sponge that holds moisture after rain events, and then slowly releases it as the plants need it.
4. A surface mulch of chips keeps the sun from irradiating the microbial community as well as keeps soil temperature from spiking under our hot California sun, thus evaporating moisture and drying out our heavy clay soil.
5. Despite what some say, as long as you do not till the chips down into the soil profile, they do not tie up available nitrogen for your plants. In fact, as they break down, create a habitat for fungi as well as a rich habitat for earth worms, chips INCREASE the amount of nitrogen. You just need to give them a year to break down and go no-till as you plant your garden. Rake them back, plant your seeds, and then as plants emerge carefully push the chips back where you want them for mulch.
6. Straw, grass, compost . . . these all break down very quickly and gas off within a couple of months. Chips will also break down and gas off eventually (particularly once your soil gets more and more healthy), but in general, a six-inch layer of chips will last at least a full growing season before needing to be replaced. As they break down, the soil beneath only gets better and better.
7. A layer of chips throughout your garden, under your fruit trees, on your pathways . . . is a passive compost pile ---- more accurately, a sheet of passive compost. You don't have to turn it. Put it down once, and reap the benefits for years to come.
8. Free. Stop paying for carbon. People are looking for someone to take them --- it's great for you, great for them, and great for the environment when a truck load of chips doesn't go to a landfill somewhere.
Best of luck.
"The rule of no realm is mine. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, these are my care. And for my part, I shall not wholly fail in my task if anything that passes through this night can still grow fairer or bear fruit and flower again in days to come. For I too am a steward. Did you not know?" Gandolf