Venturing into wood-chip gardening

A month ago we had two trees taken out in anticipation of having our house reroofed. The new roof is on, and after some back and forth with the company, we're pleased with how it looks. Today is the first day of rain since the roof was replaced, so we will see how well it works.

As I'd mentioned before, one of the trees was a birch tree, with lovely white bark. I've used some of the more level logs as tables and stools around our fire ring. I'm thinking of using some of the rest of those logs in the landscape near the wooded part of our property. The other tree was a cedar. I've yet to find a use for those logs. The branches of both were chipped up by the tree removal company. We asked that they leave the wood chips with us. So they dumped about 10 cubic yards of wood chips on our driveway. Initially I used about 1 cubic yard of those chips under our blueberry bushes and on a pathway alongside one of the potato beds. The other 9 yards sat on the driveway for several weeks.

One evening this last week I watched a documentary (Back to Eden) on no-till gardening that relied on wood chips as the mulch layer on top of the beds and beneath fruit trees. I was intrigued by this idea, as I had 9 yards of wood chips at my disposal and wanted my driveway back for, you know, driving on. I then watched a few other videos on wood chip, no-till gardening and gathered as much information as I needed to begin. 

The other day I spent about 5 to 6 hours hauling wood chips to various parts of our yard. I primarily used the chips under our fruit trees and on our pumpkin patch. But I also topped the tomato bed and cabbage/Brussel sprout bed with some chips. 

The idea is that you don't till these wood chips into the soil but allow them to break down slowly over time, releasing nutrients at a very slow pace and eventually improving the soil texture. New wood chips are added every year to maintain a good mulch that will hold in moisture and suppress weeds. The speaker in the documentary also said that wood chips are not the only kind of mulch that can be used in no-till gardening. Stone mulches and rotted compost mulches will also work. 

I chose to use the chips under fruit trees and on the pumpkin patch as those two areas are the most needy in my garden and orchard. Our pear trees have suffered tremendously over the last 5 years. Last year and the year before, I mulched under both trees with compost, hoping to improve the vigor of these trees. We all noticed this spring that the pear trees do indeed look better. I don't think there are very many pears on this year's trees, but the trees themselves look healthier. The only thing different that I did for these trees was to mulch them well two years in a row. I'm hoping the wood chip mulch will help them even more. Some of the wood chips also went under the apple trees and one of two cherry trees. This is simply anecdotal, but a few years back I put a wood chip mulch under the other cherry tree and we've since had more cherries each summer. When I get more wood chips, I'll spread some of those under this other cherry tree, too.

After spreading a thick layer in the orchard I spread an equally thick layer on the pumpkin patch. The two issues I've had with the pumpkin patch is lack of water retention and overall poor soil. On the hottest days of summer I've needed to water the patch twice a day. I'm hoping to reduce watering and increase yield in this gardening space.

We will see how wood chip, no-till gardening works out for me. For more information on this method, I recommend watching Back to Eden. You can watch the entire film on You Tube for free.

Anyway, the other part of all of this that I wanted to share with you is a way to get free wood chips delivered to your property. Not all of us will be taking down trees soon for our own wood chips. But there is a website that coordinates arborists (tree trimmers) with folks who want the chipped-up wood. Sometimes logs (to use for firewood) can be gotten for free through this service as well. The problem for arborists is that after pruning or taking out a tree, not all homeowners want the residual chips or logs. This leaves the arborist with the job and expense of disposing these by products. 

ChipDrop is a service that matches up arborists and homeowners. You register at the website for wanting wood chips, fire wood, or both and the site hooks you up with an arborist in your area. Arborists pay for the service, but the recipients don't, although there's an option to make a donation if one desires. I had heard of ChipDrop before. I believe one of you mentioned it a while back. I'd never really looked into this service until recently when one of my neighbors got a huge load of wood chips through them. My neighbor was using the wood chips on his ornamental beds and to make a long pathway through the yard to the kids' play area. So this isn't necessarily a service that would only be applicable to folks with orchards or large vegetable gardens. Any gardening space one has that is in need of a natural mulch layer could benefit from a truck drop of wood chips. 

A couple of good tips for using ChipDrop:

• share the bounty. If you don't need a full truckload of wood chips, offer some to your gardening neighbors.
• best time to sign up is immediately after a large storm passes through your area, damaging lots of trees.
• worst time to sign up is in spring (like now) as homeowners are getting their yards fixed up for summer. Once summer is under way, there will be fewer competitors for those truckloads of wood chips.
• you can make some requests, such as "no fruit trees" or "no conifers" or "wood chips only, no logs" or "logs only" if you're concerned about tree diseases spreading to your own trees, or you want only chips or only logs.
• be prepared to have a dumping on your driveway without warning. When you sign up, you're agreeing to accepting any delivery, the entire delivery, at any time. Of course, if your situation changes, you can always unenroll or cancel your request.
• once you get one delivery, your information is automatically removed from the listings, so you won't receive more than one delivery. If you want more, you need to list yourself on the service again.
• wondering if ChipDrop is in your area? On the FAQ page of the ChipDrop website there's section that can tell you if they are active in your area. I entered a bunch of random cities and states, just to see, and all that I entered had active users of this service. It might be helpful to understand what is involved with this service by reading that FAQ page in its entirety, for both the arborists and the gardeners.
• while this service is free to the homeowner/gardener, you can increase your chances of receiving a delivery sooner rather than later by offering to pay the $20 fee that the arborist would have paid to the service. $20 for a truckload of wood chips is a bargain. However, if you're more like me, you might want to wait until near the end of summer, when utility companies are trimming trees in the way of power lines and homeowners are assessing the trees in their yards that should come down before fall storms begin. Later in summer is when the bulk of tree trimming and removal usually occurs, resulting in an increase in arborists needing a spot in which to dispose the wood chips. 
• If what you're hoping to receive is logs to use for firewood, most folks aren't really thinking about burning wood for heating their homes in spring and early summer. Now would be the time of year to sign up for the service to receive "logs only".

Have you used ChipDrop before? If you keep a vegetable garden, have you tried no-till gardening? Any tips to share?