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Tue, Nov 22, 11 at 15:09
| I recently moved to an area that has extremely hard packed gray clay. It is so tight and compacted that it is very difficult to get a shovel in it. The former homeowner put large wood chips on the beds andforgot about it. For eight years the "beds" have never been amended. My question is should I remove the wood chips or is there something I can do to make them decompose. Will coffee grounds or shredded newspaper help? I will have mushroom compost delivered in the spring. Any suggestions very much appreciated. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Tue, Nov 22, 11 at 17:57
| If you are trying to amend the soil beneath, I would suggest you remove wood or bark chips and set them aside first. You can dig or till in amendments, which will work faster but is more labor intensive. Or, you can do it the slow way by putting compost or compost piles (sheet composting) on top of the clay and letting the worms etc. till it in for you over time. In which case you can put the bark chips back on top of the compost. There are lots of threads here on clay soil, and you can do a search if you want to read up on amending clay. |
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| Since you appear to be talking about existing beds, I am sure that you are not going to be tilling amendments into these areas....right? I have hard clay soil, too. Fresh wood chips seem to decompose just fine for us. We have to add a new layer each year. These are wood chips from the chipper, not pine bark nuggets. Bark chips are extremely slow to decompose, no matter what kind of soil you have. We get our wood chips from local tree companies, free. |
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| too many presumptions here. What kind of wood? walnut will kill stuff, cedar takes forever to break down, softwoods raise acidity (lower pH). If the wood chips haven't broken down after 8 years, I would use them as mulch OFF of the beds - for paths, for instance, and add a more easily incorporated mulch to the beds. If the worms don't do the job in a year for me, I worry about the health of my soil. |
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| Walnut wood chips might kill stuff, if the stuff is susceptible to the Juglan from walnut but since wood chips from that source are not very readily available it is highly unlikely thaty would be. I have had cedar be digested in 5 years, does not take forever but doies depend on your Soil Food Web. Softwoods do not have any significant affect on soil pH, an old myth. What southern magnolia probably does not have in that soil is an active Soil Food Web, there is no life in that soil. Pulling the existing mulch back and working some good compost into that soil will help. Anything that will get an active Soil Food Web established. Putting newspaper or coffee grounds down now will do little since they both need an established SFW which good compost will supply. |
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| We (including myself) haven't mentioned one glaring factor here. Southern mentions GRAY clay. This can point to very anaerobic conditions as even a little bit of oxygen in any clay soil will typically cause iron to oxidize. Iron is one of the single most naturally abundant minerals in soil. Without the types of aerobic microbes in a clay soil, decomposition might actually take 'forever'. But, even gray soils can be improved. My heavy clay, by the way, is red. As I've said, my big loads of mixed wood chips are gobbled up quite quickly. |
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- Posted by purpleinopp 8b AL (My Page) on Wed, Nov 23, 11 at 10:32
| I would rake up that bark and use it as the base of a new compost pile. I've never seen bark mulch that was good. The pieces never lock into place so they don't stay put, float away in torrential rains, are inadequate for conserving moisture or suppressing weeds, and decompose so slowly as an thin exposed layer that they are virtually worthless for soil improvement, even in the very long term of 8 years that you mentioned. As rhizo said, a shredded wood (not bark) mulch should decompose fully in a year or two. Are you able to bag-mow to get a nice mix of leaves and grass to put on there for now? What are you planning to do with the bed? I would put a lot more effort and amendments into a future veggie plot than I would a spot for perennials, for example... The mushroom compost sounds great! |
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