Creating A Vegetable Garden From A Pile Of Wood Chips

While talking about adding organic matter and what's available Mike Nowak is ribbing her about having a source for organic matter that most of us don't have access to she says, "People make fantastic vegetable gardens using nothing but wood chips from utility companies. They come in and trim the trees and they may give you a pile of wood chips."

" It should be noted that people do NOT create gardens using nothing but wood chips and that making it seem like you could just start a vegetable garden using a pile of wood chips is wrong..." MBT aka Mr. Brown Thumb at Chicago Now in his final statement on the matter.

I suppose for the literal minded urbanite unable to follow the general context of a radio show conversation about the many ways to add organic matter to the soil in a vegetable garden this could be confusing. It is quite possible however to create a bountiful vegetable garden using nothing but a pile of wood chips for mulch.

In the very first paragraph of a snippy review of Michele Owens appearance on a Chicago radio show to promote her new book, MBT insinuates that "mulch robbing (robs) soil of nitrogen." That is incorrect and because they were talking specifically about wood chips, I attempted to set the record straight. It degenerated quickly from there.

A local garden "answer man" had called in to the radio show to expand on the wood chip advice and to express some fear that beginner gardeners might mix the wood chips into the soil where they can indeed begin to take some nitrogen away from the soil and plant roots as they decompose.

No, the wood chips are a mulch that stay on top and are raked away at planting time. Used as a mulch there is no significant loss of nitrogen from the soil.

(Added for clarity) What does happen is that the wood chip mulch decomposes over time and the natural biological processes of  the soil incorporates this decomposed organic matter into the soil, greatly improving it over time. Refreshing the wood chip mulch seasonally or as needed keeps this slow sheet composting method of adding organic matter to the soil an ongoing process. No tilling is involved. In fact this is an excellent way of having a no till garden.

And today it was time to plant the first potatoes.



This is the danger zone according to the Chicagoans. I am turning the soil for the potatoes and might get some wood chips mixed in there. This end of the garden is the most recent annex and was a former herb garden with stone paths of sorts. It has only been mulched about a year.

In that time the wood chip mulch combined with the natural processes of the soil have loosened the hard packed ground a good deal. I want to move things along by turning the soil and breaking up the harder layer beneath. This new tilth from a single year of wood chip mulch is letting me remove rocks I couldn't budge before.



In the older sections of the garden that have had wood chip mulch for three years I don't bother turning the soil. It is so soft and friable now there is no need. Chicken and cow manure, another form of organic matter, are added as a fertilizer. Confusing I know. Organic matter can be a mulch, fertilizer, compost and soil amendment. I don't even bother working it into the soil. Nature will take care of that.

I just dug a shallow trench and planted the potatoes.



A question on the radio show about planting an area that had been used as a dog toilet also wasn't answered to the satisfaction of some and later elicited this pearl of wisdom from MBT,

"Raised beds are the gardening version of Chris Rock's Robitussin bit; they're the answer to all the gardening ailments in Chicago."

Perhaps it is understandable that for someone in a large congested city were bare ground to plant in is a rare commodity and you have no idea who has been shitting in your garden that, um no, you don't plant the vegetables in the wood chips, you plant the vegetables in the ground may not be the default mode of thinking.

I was planting in my dirt and thinking about what goes in these raised beds and containers that urban gardeners are more likely to use than actual soil to grow their vegetables and the most delicious irony presented itself.

I know just a bit about what is available in the garden business and a thing or two about the basic habits of your average gardener. What is going to end up in the vast majority of these raised beds and containers is bagged potting mix from a big box or nursery shelf.

And what is by far the most common ingredient of bagged potting mixes?



Miracle-Gro Potting Mix : This product is regionally formulated with Forest Products Compost, sphagnum peat moss, perlite and a wetting agent. In Georgia this product contains 50 - 60 % Forest Products Compost.

Look in the bag of most any potting soil and it is mostly made of bits of wood. Grind up wood chips a bit finer, age them for six months to a year, bag em up at the factory, change the name to potting mix and behold Chicago gardeners are growing vegetables in a pile of wood chips in their raised beds.

" It should be noted that people do NOT create gardens using nothing but wood chips and that making it seem like you could just start a vegetable garden using a pile of wood chips is wrong..." MBT aka Mr. Brown Thumb at Chicago Now in his final statement on the matter.

Now to be fair my logical conclusion of what ends up in most raised beds and container gardens could be putting words into MBT's mouth. He never said what he put in them. Maybe in Chicago they have access to some great wood chip free potting soils the rest of the country doesn't. Perhaps MBT will stop by and enlighten us on the matter of what they put in raised beds to avoid having to use the real soil.

But my visit to his Chicago Now blog did not end well. When his authority was questioned he made sure he got the last word in and closed the comments. Then he topped it off with a tweetout that he knew the annoying commenter at his site must be drinking.

The truth however is that the annoying commenter does not drink and hasn't for a very long time. That little tweet and the entire tone of his post really makes you question his observation skills and whether he would be the kind of person to trust when it comes to judging what is really going on around him. It also makes you wonder what really motivates a person like that.

Some other interesting bits of information on the Miracle-Gro Potting Mix bag were these gems: Information regarding the contents and levels of metals in this product is available on the internet - and - This product has been registered for conformance to the standards of the Mulch and Soil Council for the indicated category. The Mulch and Soil standards do not contain a product category for pesticides and this certification mark does not apply to pesticide claims.

This is my roadside vegetable garden on wood chip mulch. I'll take my real soil over raised beds filled with who knows what any day.



It was a nice day devoted to gardening. Potatoes, sugar snap peas, spinach and lettuces were seeded in the vegetable garden. Along the edge of the driveway the wildflower seeds of Echinops bannaticus, Celosia and Ratibida columnaris were scratched into the soil with a hard rake. And here I was going to have a more civilized garden. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But there will be plenty of time to organize things. I want abundance now.



Chionodoxa blooms along the drive. The spring bulb annex will gather numbers as the years go by.



The five big boulders were moved into the design of the creation. It is looking very face or mask like and I was not expecting that from the drawing. I think I like it.



In the warm, a hillside covered in 10,000 daffodils quickly turns yellow.



I'm just a land rich country man who knows how to turn nothing but a pile of wood chips into a bountiful vegetable garden.



The secret is in the soil.