Trent Cowgill

when I added the chips they sat all winter and then right before spring I limed them. Ive also fertilized with chicken manure and the seaweed fertilizer that I typically use on the garden.

It was more work (weeding wise) with my traditional garden but ive never had issues like this.

I have since built 3 raised beds 12x5 and 2 smaller beds. I think I may just build 6 more raised beds and move the chips out of the way and lay new soil over top of my existing soil. and come back to the chips in a year or two. This has turned very costly on a lot of levels and I wish I wouldn't have done it at all.

So heres an update on my garden

So far it has completely killed everything ive planted except potatoes, beans, and carrots.

All my peppers cucumbers tomatoes etc have all withered, shrank, wilted or just plain shriveled and died into nothingness.

My PH is a solid 7.0 but I haven't tested my soil beyond that. Im torn on what to do....

Leave it and try again next year? or get out my tractor and push it all together for a massive bonfire???

I built a few raised beds just to have some kind of garden and I Think ill have to build at least 2 more just so we can have some to can.

Suggestions or any help regarding these issues will be much appreciated.

My chips are forsure still chips. I put this layer of fresh wood chips on last spring so they could sit till now.

I think once our growing season is up in the fall I will fence it in and throw in a chicken house and raise some meat birds in that area until winter really sets in then ill harvest the birds,

Ok so my chips are a bit deeper than I thought they were they are 10 to 12 inches deep minimum. Im having a hard time making rows to lay in my seeds. Should I remove some of the chips? or am I working to hard to get to the Soil, could I plant the seeds in the chips?

Im glad I tilled up 2 other garden spaces to work the old way just in case this bed fails I will still have some food coming in. Not going to lie this back to eden bed is a little nerve racking. We do depend on our garden for most of our food in the summer and fall. 4 soon to be 5 kids and 2 adults we need a large amount of food lol

Thanks for any help.

I layed these chips down in November. We have had a very warm winter and I pushed some of the chips aside to get to the dirt the other day and the soil was very loose and full of bugs. I did till about 12 inches deep as I usually do for my garden bed. I figured it couldn't hurt my goal is to not have to turn over this bed ever again and to significantly reduce my amount of weeds in the picture youll see when the garden looked good last year then all of a sudden it was overgrown with weeds and out of control. with kid #5 on the way I wont have as much time out there as I usually would. I'm a old school farm hand willing to learn some new things.

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Hopefully things turnout well.

I appreciate the help and I cant wait to try this out.

So you dont think 8 inches is too deep?

Im going to do some hay bales around the outside this year also.

Im way outside my comfort zone this year lol

I have been gardening for a while and decided to try the back to Eden garden method. I tilled my soil as usual and then layered on about 8 inches of fresh wood chips and I mean 24 hour old chips.

My question is that im worried I put to much on and Im not sure if I should thin them out or how to move forward. My garden it 50x60 so getting rid of this many wood chips would be a pain.

Any help/info on moving forward is greatly appreciated.