Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Smittyctz6 <cityhomesteader@gmail.com>]

HI Paul,
I have to disagree here. I have been working extensively with remedial wood chips and find that with the right Microbial lifeforms  they break down rather quickly into a loam that you can not beat. I can send pictures of Maple wood chips  from my pile that were just deposited this last Spring and what they look like now. Yes there is still some wood  in it, but there is now more compost than wood. Maybe the problem isn't the wood chips but the lack of the right microbes in the pile to break it all down into compost? Mine is teeming with life both seen and unseen, smells like good rich loam and ready to screen and add to the raised beds.
I also use fall leaves as soil building material. Both I get for free. One mans trash is another mans treasure!
I had my first dump truck load drop shipped yesterday and ordered another. The leaf removal firm is only to glad to accommodate me. No Charge. I also have a free source of rabbit manure and can get all the horse manure I could ever want for the hailing free!!

False choice. Wood chips don't belong in the soil anyway; unlike cellulose, lignin takes too long to break down and robs nitrogen from growing plants. Wood chips make great mulch, and mulch pays for itself in weed control, yield, soil improvement, and irrigation costs. We have to take in the Big Picture.

We're always trying to improve our techniques and materials but the soil basics remain the same. Sir Albert didn't have our UV greenhouse plastic in his time, when he was developing the Indore method of composting in weeks instead of months. But I'm glad to have it today. I still search the secondhand stores for books I don't have yet from Rodale Press, tho I have dozens of them already. No sense in reinventing the wheel.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net