We added a thick layer of wood chips to our big garden this fall. They aren't yet totally decomposed, but we're excited to see the results. Our only issues:
1) We've tried scraping away the chips in some places in order to plant seeds directly in the soil, but they either don't come up, or come up and do poorly and then disappear. How do others deal with this? We've mostly done seedlings so it's not a huge issue, but any day now, we want to plant a lot of bean seeds, and I'm not sure how to do that and ensure that they come up. Thoughts?
2) We wanted to put a layer of manure down last fall before adding the wood chips, but didn't get a chance. Now some of the new plants look a little yellowish and we've got a big pile of composted cow manure, and we'd like to add it. But can/should we add a layer on TOP of the wood chips? Or add it in some other way, like as fertilizer tea?
Thanks, in North Carolina.
