The other benefit of mulching the paths (aside from grass/weed control, microclimate, habitat) is that after the growing season (in the winter) you can scrape the partially decomposed materials - in your case cardboard/chip (I use cardboard/bracken) onto the beds to enrich/deepen the no-dig system. In some ways I pay more attention to the paths/bed edges than the beds themselves!
Yes! Many years ago, when I had a few rescued hens, they used to spend most of their time foraging in the woodchip paths for bugs and pooping, turning it in a few months to excellent compost which we also shovelled onto the beds.
Moles: encouraging to know your soil life has reached the highest trophic level, not so encouraging when all your transplants wilt as their roots hang in the middle of a new tunnel, or your carrot sowings disapear! You could turn your old bed edges into biochar before they rot completely, I use a 55gal drum on it's side with a 10" slot cut down the side, any metal container would do really (or even a hole in the ground) I used to use an old 11 gal stainless beer barrel but I wanted much bigger batches, start with a small fire, add more fuel as the previous layer starts to ash over, which starves the lower layer of oxygen, repeat until it's almost full, then when the yellow flames cease, quench it with water. John Kempf said their experience with broadacre biochar only had a measureable response up to 100lbs per acre, that's only 11grams per sq M, didn't say what the soil type was unfortuneately. I'm trying to get the top 6" to 10% biochar which is considerably more than 11g psM as I'm in sandy loam trying to increase the CEC.
Yes, biochar could help raise the level of microbes in some of the less productive beds though I'd also need to be making compost tea to inoculate it with. That's a plan for the spring when we have our next batch of good home-made microbe-rich compost ready. As for potential losses, so far I've not noticed anything significant and having found plenty of root nibbling grubs/larvae in the soil I'm happy that we have a predator reducing their numbers.
The other benefit of mulching the paths (aside from grass/weed control, microclimate, habitat) is that after the growing season (in the winter) you can scrape the partially decomposed materials - in your case cardboard/chip (I use cardboard/bracken) onto the beds to enrich/deepen the no-dig system. In some ways I pay more attention to the paths/bed edges than the beds themselves!
Yes! Many years ago, when I had a few rescued hens, they used to spend most of their time foraging in the woodchip paths for bugs and pooping, turning it in a few months to excellent compost which we also shovelled onto the beds.
Moles: encouraging to know your soil life has reached the highest trophic level, not so encouraging when all your transplants wilt as their roots hang in the middle of a new tunnel, or your carrot sowings disapear! You could turn your old bed edges into biochar before they rot completely, I use a 55gal drum on it's side with a 10" slot cut down the side, any metal container would do really (or even a hole in the ground) I used to use an old 11 gal stainless beer barrel but I wanted much bigger batches, start with a small fire, add more fuel as the previous layer starts to ash over, which starves the lower layer of oxygen, repeat until it's almost full, then when the yellow flames cease, quench it with water. John Kempf said their experience with broadacre biochar only had a measureable response up to 100lbs per acre, that's only 11grams per sq M, didn't say what the soil type was unfortuneately. I'm trying to get the top 6" to 10% biochar which is considerably more than 11g psM as I'm in sandy loam trying to increase the CEC.
Yes, biochar could help raise the level of microbes in some of the less productive beds though I'd also need to be making compost tea to inoculate it with. That's a plan for the spring when we have our next batch of good home-made microbe-rich compost ready. As for potential losses, so far I've not noticed anything significant and having found plenty of root nibbling grubs/larvae in the soil I'm happy that we have a predator reducing their numbers.