Update on Vegetable Gardening with Woodchips

Main Garden Plot

On December 7, 2013, I posted about all kinds of edibles I intended to plant in woodchips. If you are interested, go back and read that entry. I believed I had seen the error of my gardening ways and was ready for a change. Really, the essence of that entry dealt with my belief paradigm. Would I be able to change the way I gardened? The answer is a resounding, YES! I had already taken baby steps, now it was time to go all in. Oh my, have I been rewarded. I’m able to grow more than twice the amount of fruits and vegetables on my tiny plot. Here’s what I did:

Sweet husband and I always take our little trailer over to the city yard where free woodchips from local trees are available. For fifteen years we have mulched our trees, shrubs and flowers. I had been mulching the strawberries and they bore a ton of fruit. The apple tree was loaded. I had inter-planted occasional vegetables into the landscape with good results. Now it was time to dump the “free nutrients” on the veggies. We hauled countless loads in the spring and fall of 2014 and then again in the spring of 2015. The fall of last year was a very busy time for us, so we fell down on the proverbial job and added nothing. I harvested broken down woodchips from areas where we had been adding chips for years, moved that to the veggie garden and then we applied fresh chips to those stripped areas. Yes, it was labor intensive, a sacrifice we all tend to make when we’re planning for the future. My old body got whipped into shape and I felt great.

Quince in Flower

I planted in those broken down woodchips in the garden proper and put new chips around plants to retain water and suppress weeds. The results were surprising. Even in 2014 the yields were amazing. I also did second and third plantings of carrots and beets and potatoes. We covered with leaves the few carrots I had left in the ground and harvested them until they ran out in December of 2014. I was determined to have more in “storage” for 2015. I must have re-planted at exactly the right time, as this last winter we harvested over 40 pounds of beautiful, sweet carrots until March, when I dug the rest and put them in cold storage. It’s a wonderful feeling when you remove the snow and leaves and discover orange gold. Some of them weighed up to 10 ounces! They were so tasty and fresh. I experimented with a few beets and next winter we will have fresh, organic beets until spring.

 

Beautiful and Medicinal Violets

Other bonuses to gardening this way:

*NO watering: even after a month last summer with no rain, the ground held rainwater.

*Few weeds: how nice is it when, at the peak of your busy time, weeding takes five minutes?

*No cultivation: yes, my second year of no backbreaking turning-over-of-the-rye. That was a bear, getting ready to plant. This year, as every year, I mail ordered any seeds I was unable to save from 2015. I also ordered onion plants instead of sets. They sent my order and informed me that the onion plants would come when it was time to plant. Yikes! There they were on March 16^th. The weather was wet, cold and dreary and the instructions said “Plant ASAP”. I took the box out to the potting shed and grabbed the hoe. Surely it would be a bog out there. To my surprise, the soil was not muddy but instead well drained. I made my trenches and quickly planted three long rows of red, yellow and white onions. Way too easy. No-till gardening means you are ready to plant whenever. The soil retains its natural integrity; no cultivation means preserving the structure that encourages natural biological activity and fertility.

*Heavy yields: close plantings and successive plantings means food pouring in. Pull a beet, plant a seed in its place. Of course, this doesn’t work for every vegetable at least I haven’t found a way. Maybe, for example, starting cabbage seedlings in pots for late transplant? The woodchips generate warmth as they break down, which jumpstarts the season, but some things are harvested only once.

*Constant fertilization: trees are our best source for fertilizer. Trees harvest the energy that can later be transferred into food. Yes, I compost, but leaves and woodchips mixed in with kitchen waste (banana, citrus, potato peels, coffee grounds etc.) heat up and speed the breaking down process. Really, it’s just easier to find a bare spot and dig a small hole and bury the kitchen waste right in the garden; the same with leaves in the spring. If it goes on the pile, it has to be moved into the garden at some point. I’m not getting any younger.

In December of 2013, I made a commitment to grow vegetables in woodchips. I overcame the bare-soil belief paradigm. I protected the tender skin of Mother Earth and she has rewarded me beyond my expectations. I’m able to grow more than twice the amount of fruits, vegetables and herbs on my little urban plot.

Sammie on Top

 

Fig Tree Overwintered in Front Porch

Tulips Pretending to be Roses