Thanks for the update. The results are very interesting!

"I would get wood chips dumped on an area outside of my MG and have fun planting in it. I would not, however, dump wood chips in my MG, since I've done so much to build the soil"

Agreed.

If you have time for the wood to break down...and if your soil/moisture conditions are favorable to break it down...you can "create" soil where you dump wood chips.

...it's just the seasons/years of waiting or dumping extra nutrients waiting for it to happen.

The method's thing about adding more chips season after season to your soil just seems like a race against your own soil creation to me. There's good stuff in the method, and stuff that makes me pause. Plus, you cannot count on wood chips degredading the same way in different environments...in dry regions you could be inviting all kinds of weird pests (especially termites in very dry regions).

Cool results, btw.

I saw that movie too and hoped the method might really help me.

I live in the woods and have lots of wood chips from chopping firewood, etc. I also have lots of pests in my garden and not a lot of fertility. We are not in a dry climate and I have a good watering setup with soaker hoses, etc in my vegie garden.

This year someone offered me a bunch of free (clean) sawdust. I didn't want to take a chance with anything too important, but I did mulch all my summer squash with it. I was cautioned that it could "rob the soil of all the nitrogen" but so far I have not noticed any adverse effects and the squash is all doing terrific. It's easier to see and catch the squash bugs and the cucumber beetles too--they have a hard time getting airborn on the sawdust.

I didn't see the other discussions on the BTE method--is the consensus basically that it does remove nitrogen from the soil?

That's interesting, Elise.

Potato yield is very dependent on amount of fertilizer, IME, so to draw any conclusion we have to be sure that you used the fish-goop very evenly between the two areas. If that is so, then the difference in yield is almost certainly the more consistent soil moisture in the heavily mulched area. I bet if you had mulched the other area it would be similar.

Va herb mom -- I think if you search (see up top in tool bar?) for Back to Eden Gardening method you'll pull up the other discussions. There was not a real consensus about the method, except maybe that, as nc-cm says above, that it is quite dependent on the place it is used.

Pat, yeah I think I may have inadvertantly researched mulch vs no mulch rather than the actual method. I did try to pour the fish emulsion evenly, but didn't use a measuring cup or anything. I also may have been testing weeds vs no weeds! My MG this year is basically a feast for beneficials -- but there is food there, too, so we are all feasting.

The chips do keep the soil friable. My husband and I planted potatoes yesterday on my neighbor's land, where it had been plowed and then rained and then dried. I don't plow or till my own garden, so I didn't have experience with this -- the ground was so hard!! Then I went with the last few seed potatoes and stuck them in the wood chip area -- like digging into cake.

Wow, that's late to be planting potatoes....

My experience using irregular arborist wood chips is only good. In thin layers it doesn't last as long as I'd like in my rainy climate. In our part sun perennial and shrub beds it lasted longer than in full sun in the vegetable and fruit garden.

We've also used horse manure + pelleted bedding(sawdust)+ some guinea pig manure and same bedding in all our gardens from time to time.

From one source they put it in a shallow pit & keep it covered. Horses eat oats, beet pulp, and alfalfa hay.

From another they pile it in a concrete 3 sided holding area on driveway. Horses eat beet pulp, black oil sunflower seeds, and alfalfa hay.

One batch was bright orange and mostly sawdust last spring. We used what we needed as mulch when perennials were about 4" tall. Then composted the rest in it's own pile.

moist
kept covered
turned once to load in trailer
turned again to unload trailer to tarp near backyard gate
turned again to move pile shoveled into garden cart
turned again as dumped out of cart
kept covered
1 year later - dark & crumbly, loose. Not as dark as other compost piles. Have added some lime when we've spread it on the gardens again as mulch or used in the bottom of large pots before adding potting soil.

I just watched the movie last night and see a lot of merit to the BTE method- though it would be very expensive to bring in a few inches of good topsoil before adding chips as the people in PA did. I had a pile of chips delivered a year and 1/2 years ago in the fall and used about 1/3 for garden paths right away. In the spring when I dug into the pile to use it for new paths I was kind of shocked to see tons of worms. I believe they were probably there due to the fact that the chips had plenty of leaves chopped in as well.
This year I will try to locate some more aged chips and plan to mulch the garden with them instead of the usual hay I use, but will probably do some side by side comparison.

I just started a new garden plot in florida, and used a lot of wood chips as a thick mulch to hold in moisture. Evaporation from florida sand is a huge problem. As NC pointed out, the chips do create ideal conditions for insects, in the case of florida it is fire ants. The ants do not predate on healthy plants but they are significant irritant for gardeners.

In most cases thick piles of mulch will greatly encourage rodents as well. So while the moisture-retention is a big plus, the pest issues could be large also.

Thanks for reporting results.

Coffee grounds and wood chips make a nice tandem. You get some nitrogen to feed the bacteria and some finer material with the coffee grounds....

Here in socal, breakdown of wood chips is slow. faster if they are mixed with some more absorbent material, like leaves. I've also noticed the places where they have some sort of plants shading them, that they break down a lot quicker.

One option is to cover a chip pile with a tarp to conserve moisture. Also, spreading chips thinly across a larger area of ground is preferable to mounding. When they are in a mound in dry climates the center of the pile dries out, even with occasional watering.

Perhaps the concentration on wood chips is new but the idea of no till, permanent mulch gardening is older than I am. Back in the early 70s there were books by Ruth Stout about it. I didn't have the guts to try it then.

After experimenting with wood chips for the first time last year, I've gone over fully to using them everywhere, on the soil, in the soil, on the paths, ... even in some pots.

The biggest surprise for me was when I dug up some soil at the end of the season to compare a bed with wood chips dug in to part of the bed without wood chips dug in.
Roots loved growing into the wood chip soil, but avoided the clay soil w/o wood chips dug in.
Same with worms.

Nitrogen robbing was not a problem, just added extra nitrogen fertilizer at the beginning of the season.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wood chip soil pictures

Elisa, the premise of BTE is that tilling destroys the soil structure and bio life. Tilling removes the covering; the soil rapidly dries out and top soil erodes. The "magic" in the wood chips is it is a covering that first retains moisture, and secondly feeds the plants as they decompose. It's why a mulch of smaller nutrient rich branches with needles and leaves is necessary and not just chipped trunks or bark chips only.

The fungi that develop in the wood chip mulch help feed the plants. The mulch develops a helper system of organisms and other plant life that assists your fruits and veggies. In turn, your plants feed them.

If you till composted organic material into your main garden, I'd suggest another experiment. Set aside a small section of your MG (maybe as small as 5x10 feet) for no-till. Still don't use wood chips, but layer your organics on the top (composted manure, yard waste, etc). Paul is very specific that if you don't have wood chips, just use whatever organic materials you have. (You can even use rocks) The most important part is to create a covering and not mix it in. Layer on top.

When I tilled, I had virtually no earthworm population. Now, by not tilling, I can't dig a 4 " planting hole anywhere without killing several earthworms. And my soil (mostly red clay) is always damp and soft I destroyed a small tiller in two seasons trying to break up the clay. I then rented bigger tillers that beat me up for 6-8 hours trying to a 12x40 garden in which one half barely produced b/c of the rock hard clay. And it was back just as hard in the fall as it was in the spring. So it wasn't getting easier with time.

Now with the wood chips, that area stays moist and soft. Everything grows there and I save the expense of renting, tilling, and fighting the soil every season.

The fact that you got 25% more production is huge. You can get that in your MG using BTE principles but without adding wood chips. Paul no longer adds wood chips to his main garden b/c of his difficulty in walking. He uses them everywhere else. But in his MG he uses compost from his chicken pen as the covering.