What i consistently love about you guys is that your videos are actually rooted in common sense instead of hype. Alot of channels preach common sense but they coukd take a lesson from yours. Always a pleasure to follow your journey.
@@iamorganicgardening .... except that organic-matter mulches and compost are pulled into the soil (as they degrade enough) by the soil critters, mostly earthworms. The plant roots add their own organic matter, exudates, encourages fungal/bacterial/plant symbioses, and rot down into in-situ "compost". OM mulches and compost don't interfere with this process but add to its effectiveness. In this case, it's not a zero-sum game.
I have found it best to start a wood chip garden area with at least 8-10 inches, and the chips improve over the years as it decomposes, but it is best to keep adding more chips every year or every other year. In the beginning, you will still need to throw comfrey tea or something around the plants (just throw the tea ontop of the chips and the rain will water it in) as the fresh chips just don't put off enough decaying compost tea as they will in a year or two. Having your chips 8-10 inches deep will be a blessing to you as it helps to keep moisture in to the point that even during a drought the tomatoes or other goodies in the wood chips do not need watering! Its great. But for sure, more than a couple inches of chips or you will be disappointed with the amount of work to maintain such a shallow application, they dry out much quicker too at only 3 inches, best to do it deep to begin with ;)
We have a huge amount of oak leaves in the fall. For years we have mounded them up either waited for them to decompose or lately we started using them as mulch and then pull them aside to plant. I just recently learned this is a ‘thing’. Awesome!
this is the first video I've seen that does such a good job of explaining natural gardening methods, especially the less work methods. Thank you so much! Please keep the videos coming. They are so helpful.
We started this method in 2017 atop very sandy soil and ended up with a 30 x 40 plot. The vegetable yield was awesome! This is our first food garden and we were blown away. We used free cardboard from clean recycle dumpsters. The rest was as you did here. We grew 12 different veggies including garlic and organic potatoes we had that sprouted 😁. We sprt of put the potatoes in as a test and were amazed at what a few cur up potatoes yielded. We also used the method to cover the soil around our raspberries and blueberries which really took off after we did that. After such a successful 1st season we added herb beds on the 30’ edge this garden. I cannot wait to plant 2018!! This works very well and we had almost no weeding or watering. The garden has 5 young fruit trees on the 40’ side. I would recommend this to anyone especially those who think dogging and tilling is preventing them from starting a garden. We did none of that and we bought a huge tiller. We never used it!
I like you guys. You seem happy, content and enjoying nature. That's how I am when I'm outside working. I have been gardening since 2008 but just found out about all these other techniques. My granddaughter and I started farming hens (just 3). I want to be able to sustain myself as well as my extended family. Stay bless!!!!
Now you are speaking my language! My small yard is BTE. The main difference is language. Instead of sheet-mulch, the wood chips (or hay as RS uses) is referred to as the cover. Sometimes the first year or two can be disappointing because of the time it can take for the cover to start breaking down and making "compost tea" from the cover. (I see you hedged your bets by putting down a layer of compost under the cover) Many, like us, keep a compost pile. The beauty of BTE is that we no longer turn our compost regularly. Once a year, usually after the pumpkin harvest, we turn the rough compost back into the compost pile AFTER screening the fine, decomposed bits into the wheelbarrow. Then in the fall, we toss the fine compost (and it IS amazing and sweet) onto the chips, to be rained into the soil as compost tea (we learned this from Paul Gautschi, the subject of the Back to Eden film). We are in our 3rd year and will not go back. If there were space I would tell you how amazing this method is for our tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, apples and pears... but you should find out for yourself, because as I like to say when sharing my experience ...your mileage may vary. Debs in Everett, WA (USA)
This info you have is fantastic....I have just started a 850 sqft rooftop garden in Algarve Portugal and am using all compost from my juice bar that my new worm farm is helping out with. I want to implament this technique on my farm.. im using all recycled fruit baskets and pallets for shelves, the idea is to feed my and Anna also providing some very valuable produce for my juice bar.. I am definitely greatful I found all this info.
excellent! you guys inspire me and my partner so much! we plan to buy a stretch of land this summer after working a couple of years in warehousing ( crap job, but pays well with overtime). Hopefully we have enough resources in us to work with permaculture! We are waiting for the next video! Love!
Hey Derek, you should submit your videos to a TV station. You are a great presenter. Permaculture can be used in small suburban gardens as well. You make it so understandable. Have watched all your videos from the get go. Cheers from Australia.
Hey, y'all...you can keep deer out successfully with just a knee high single strand electric fence. We've done it like that for over 40 years, so that stockade you have planned isn't going to be necessary. Love watching your experiments! I have been doing BTE for the past 3 yrs but have had trouble sourcing chips enough, so switching to hay this year. Love it so far and it's cheap, easy to use and easily sourced. Can't wait to see how it does this spring.
I'm pleased to see you do this. I'm working on a quarter acre on Back to Eden garden just outside of Waterloo this spring after a huge success in my small backyard garden last year. I hope this goes well for you.
It feels really weird to me from my French eyes seeing all these different methods being given different names whereas they all have the same goal : building a living soil that'll feed and protect your plants. In France I like that we call it "agriculture sol vivant" or "living soil farming". And this term encompasses all the methods you're mentioning : straw, hay, wood chips... It also works with cover crops (although the timing is delicate, so people usually use both cover crops and mulch). And you can use compost or manure as well, basically living soil farming is about building a living soil with whatever materials you have nearby. It's also not exclusively organic, and it's either for family gardens or larger farms. At the moment about 200 farmers are doing in France. Some use ramial wood chips, some use straw, some use hay... It depends what you have, and how good your soil is when you start. If your soil is poor, you may have to supplement with compost or manure in the beginning, as the mulch won't have time to build humus and generate fertility and you create what's called nitrogen depletion. And no, it does not only happen when you till the soil, that is completely false. Those 200 farmers know it well. It also happens if you start a mulch on a soil that was PREVIOUSLY tilled in the past and is low in fertility. The important parameter is the organic matter percentage in your soil. A good soil has 4-6 %, with an average of 4.5 in France. Soils tilled to death in my country have sunk as low as 1% which is a disaster. It's a soil that's just rock, and you can't farm without fertilizers and tillage, your plants are often sick, and you get a ton of weeds because the soil is a living organism and is trying to use weeds to heal itself. With a permanent mulch, you gain 0.5 % of organic matter every 2 years... So it's a very long process to restore those soils... And on these soils, if you put 10 cm of wood chips with nothing else, you'll have a disaster. If it's not too compacted, you can just add compost to combat the inevitable nitrogen depletion. If it's compacted, you need to incorporate the mulch in the first 10 cm, to help the earthworms who can't break that surface crust, and add more mulch on top. If you put mulch on an old meadow, forest, or wildflower field, that hasn't been tilled in the last 10-15 years, then yeah there's enough nitrogen reserves so that adding the mulch won't become a problem. Nitrogen is stored in humus in stable form, and is leaked in mineralized form continuously to be available for plants.
That's impressive. Thanks for sharing. I'm UK based and just started gardening. It has been difficult to fathom why the soil has not been fertile enough to support the growing of vegetables which in an otherwise temperate climate should be easy with all the moisture we have here. Your explanation is very concise and logical. So my understanding is to support the soil with horse manure, compost and mulch which should at least begin the process of revitalising a depleted soil and continue to build on that over time - perhaps planting as much as I can but not expecting much in return. At least to begin with. Thanks once again.
@@Phoenix-kf4xo Yes it can take time. But some stuff will grow even in a poor soil. In a compacted clay soil, salads tomatoes and squashes should do fine. In a poor loamy soil, you can try legumes like peas, fava beans, or not too hungry root vegetables like radishes, carrots and turnips. And aromatic herbs will work anywhere. On areas you're not using, just sow some green manure : canola, rye, vetch, clover, buckwheat, mustard... They look good, and they smother unwanted weeds. Once in flower, you either cut them down or roll them over, to kill them. Leave them on the ground, and that's your mulch. You can then sow directly into this or transplant stuff grown from seed in trays. Also, rain will not necessarily work to your advantage. Long term, rain will compact a naked tilled soil, as there's no living organism in it to keep it together. It'll also wash away nutrients, especially nitrogen in tilled soils. So yes rain is good, but only if you have mulch to protect your soil, otherwise it turns into a problem. In Brazil and Argentina, most of their crop farming is now done with green manure and no till, with direct sowing into the mulched green manure, because there is so much rain it creates giant crevasses in their land if they till it...
Guys... You inspired me! I looked way more into back to eden gardening, and since I was already preparing flower beds and looking what to do for another plot... You've made it too obvious! I am headed to pick up some trailers full of wood chips now! I already cleared the sod in those areas, but I'll lay down some paper anyway! I also took this opportunity to toss all my yard waste and partially composted materials into a trench. I plan on planting just the edge of that much lime you did with the lettuce in your hugelkultur that first year. And I'll let everything behind it just become amazing for next year/season while I fill the other spot! Thank you for the inspiration! (btw I dug a 1m x 3m trench since I saw this video.... 16 hours ago.... I did it entirely in the dark last night, my neighbor had a pretty large light out back and my eyes adjusted eventually.
I've done a heap of vegie gardening with wood chips - two things. Gaucci mentions this - you NEED to add chicken manure constantly to the top of the wood chips - just sprinkle it over. You also need to add more wood chips - they break down real fast. Also with the cardboard your weeds don't look to bad - in a highly fertile climate gass like cooch will just grow under the cardboard - so you should put down a base layer of pure manure and some blood and bone, then news paper and wet it - this "suffocates" everything - THEN cardboard.
Would it be possible to substitute the chicken manure for other types? Also, how is the climate where you live? I'm here in Canada and trying to start a back to eden garden
@@shen6250 The thing about spreading manure on the TOP of the chips is that as it gets watered, and weathered it breaks down and feeds the chips / soil / myceleum. Sea weed as well. Consider the impacts of freezing on water in the chips - think it should be ok.
@@audas Ohhh I see. So are you saying I should put manure as a layer below the chips? And thank you for the advice. Definitely need to think about how freezing will affect things. I'm just hoping to get the wood chips to break down quickly
@@shen6250 No - you spread it over the top of the chips. You should prepare your beds first - I use a layer of manure on the ground, then newspaper wet, then cardboard, then layer up with a "lasange" bed - or just use excellent composted soil. If you use lasange you MUST wait till it is broken down (several months). Then on top of this wood chips. Then when I plant you pull back the chips and plant into the soil - I generally add soil at this point. You need to keep adding wood chips as they break down very quickly - probably once a year depending on how deep they are. Spread manure over the top, or any other organic material to compost down. Never till or disturb the chips. If you just want to wood chip over the top of normal soil you would have to till the soil below, then news paper and cardboard and then wood chips. You could do it without tilling the soil but you would have to wait several months I would think.
@@audas wow! Thank you so much for that information. So with the first method of using a layer of wet newspaper then cardboard and then "excellent composted soil", is there a certain amount of time you wait before planting? And by "adding soil" you mean putting some on top after pulling back the wood chips and planting. In terms of not tilling or disturbing the chips, you mean other than when moving them aside gently to plant in the soil correct? Just some additional information: my home is new so the backyard has only been put in place for two years. There was topsoil and I put some compost over it last summer. There is a fair amount of clay in the ground as well. Thank you so much for answering these questions. This is the first time I've had a real backyard and I'm excited to do things the right way.
Wow your explanation, visuals, and content are fenomenal!! Thank you! I'm just taking a permaculture design course and stumble upon your channel, beautiful work! 👏👐💯
Touches on so much! Excellent....I'd like more experiments with weeds - as in not actually removing them, except for immediately around the plant...I saw 'the morning gardener,' does this. HIs garden, full of weeds, and he just pulled some out a few inches around for his seedling, and planted right in there, great, fluffy soil...And- the gophers stuck to the weed roots, and left his plants alone!
Super Rad! I went from 2 raised beds to a 50x25 "deep mulch" garden - I covered half the garden in woodchips, and half is just fall leaves. That was in November of last year, and now that it is actually planting time, I'm basically ignoring the wood chip side in favor of the leaf mulch side. My wood chips were WAY too thick - or at least it seems that way. I think I had too many sticks and not enough "chips" - but I look forward to seeing the results of your B2E bed this year :)
You'll have to weed it in a couple of years. The woodchips will break down. Fungus will break down the woodchips and the worms will make them into wormcastings. If you don't want to do much weeding you will need to add more woodchips. But at least it is easier to pull the weeds. But what you did is wonderful and I grew a bumper crop of butternut squash in a bed I prepared similar to what you did in this video. A few years of adding to your soil like this will restore it to it's natural fertility.
Great presentation. I'm enjoying the scientific experiment. We have done a back to eden style this summer, and with a second growing season in zone 9a, getting a first stab at cool weather crops right away. Nice garlic bed LOL i can only imagine that garlic expansion.
This reminds me of a story from Japan which I've heard from a tv documentary, because of rapid deforestation, topsoil eroded and winds further the erosion. So they seek help and came with the idea of mulching. But because of strong wind, it quickly blew away, so they mix with seaweed instead because it was heavy and moisture retaining!
There is actually a big difference between wood chips and other sheet mulches, and its fungi. Fungi is what is key to a forest to hold and move water and nutrients around to the network of plants and trees in it. That's why it is so important to get wood into the growing layers, from chop and drop methods etc, to mimick what nature does naturally through falling branches and trees that feed the fungi in a self sustaining forest. I started with this method, but have evolved into using a more woody mulch from coarser material with branches with leaves from hedges and chop and drop, because they attract far more plant friendly insects like mantis and spiders etc to help control pests. The chips create more of a friendly bug desert
Congrats on your Back To Eden garden. I going to be planting my third year in this method of gardening. One thing maybe you should have added is when adding the chips, use leaves too. I have talked to so many here in maine and online friends about the BTE and they go out and buy bag after bag of wood chips from the big box stores. Yes it will probably help some, bot not like the mulch that you get from chipping brush, or from the tree services that chip up trees, limbs and the leaves. I have watched a few of your videos now and excited to follow up on this one and also subscribed. Many blessings to you and your family, Jim
THAT was an excellent explanation! And another great video. BTW - with the mulch, keep an eye on your pH levels. Some mulches can change your pH quickly. Can't wait to see what's next!
Hi I enjoyed your video, two years ago I came across the BTE method and I added 8" of tree mulch to my existing planting areas and 13" to my orchard. My soil was already a rich nearly black colour and had lots of worms. It was Autumn when I started and my beds where full of weeds, I stepped on them to flatten them and then added my mulch. I left it alone for nearly 8 months and sprinkled pelletised chicken poo on top of the mulch. By Spring time my garden was ready for me to move the mulch and plant into my soil. I did ensure the mulch was moist as this helps it break down and I also use compost tea once a month. I have had great success with tree mulch and two years down I am actually having to remove some soil as I have run out of height in my raised beds. We have very hot summers and lots of wind storms here but the mulch protects my soil and roots and my plants produce lots of fresh fruit/berries/veggies.
There's a couple of things many gardeners got wrong about Ruth Stout and Paul Gautschi ('Back to Eden'). First, they both tilled for years before adopting no till methods. Second, Paul used wood chips in the orchard, but never used wood chips in the vegetable garden. Instead, he uses compost from his chicken run and even buys finished compost instead. Actually I think Paul got it wrong...he looked in the forest and somehow deduced that wood chips were an answer. But the forest doesn't drop wood chips, but instead drops leaves and needles. So for what it's worth, I think a smarter mulch is shredded leaves and grass clippings. 😊
great video, but a quick note on the back to eden method: The woodchips that paul recommends are branches and leaves (basically a compost pile with carbon and nitrogen). Your mix may not have enough nitrogen for this first year, so don't give up on it if that's the case. If you have chickens just use their compost on top
Your channel is amazing guys! Amazing use of visuals, common sense and easy to follow explanations. I had success using various combinations of companion planting and planting undesirables like garlic on the edges as opposed to fencing. We still lose a little here and there to my worst enemy the rabbits, but all in all it is working out great.
Excellent video - you're very good at explaining things :-) I use a variety of mulches in my no-dig garden (straw, hay, spent mushroom compost, grass clippings, coffee grounds...) depending on what I have and what veggies I'm growing. However, I prefer using woodchips as a mulch for my perennial edible plants. This year we're clearing a new area under our apple trees - we covered that with cardboard + wood chips and I'm planting winter squash and zucchini through the mulch. Next year the herb layer will be planted with a mix of perennial vegetables. We're doing this in phases since the herb layer requires an enormous amount of plants and we're growing most of these ourselves to save money.
yes, it has been a fantastic journey! i love that you both are so free and gave broken out of society's box. also love how you explain what your doing and the information you give. i do little movies for family, i know content and editing is not easy. your video's are mych appreciated.
From all the research I've done, I've come to understand that annual beds prefer straw, hay, and green mulch, while perennial beds (as well as trees and shrubs) prefer wood chips and leaves. This is because annuals tend to grow better in bacteria-dominated soil (higher nitrogen balance), while perennials and woody plants grow better in fungal-dominated soil (higher carbon balance + cellulose and lignin). But I haven't done any scientific tests to confirm that, and I'm sure that regardless which mulch type you use, a deep-mulched bed will build soft, rich soil that's vastly superior to conventional gardens.
if you guys plan to continue to smother out grass with things like paper and cardboard, a good place to look for free materials would be college dorm dumpsters. At the start of each new semester students usually toss out so many cardboard boxes that the dumpsters are over flowing. Don't forget your box cutters ;)
I love the way you explain things. However I was under the impression that A. the BTE garden needed to be constructed in the fall to give the process time to break down and B. that a layer of manure went under the layer of compost. It will be very interesting to see the results of the different gardening methods.
We will see how it all works. We did want to get the garden in before the winter for that reason but the snow came too soon. That said our pile of wood chips was outside for the winter months. Not sure that will do what you are saying but we will see...fingers crossed :) Thanks so much for watching.
desertification is primarily caused by overgrazing and clearfelling. Once the organic layer is gone, the soil cannot retain moisture and the water runs away instead of being held, which leads to further degradation of the soil.
There are down sides to sheet mulching with wood chips. For all practical purposes you can't til a seed bed. Any annual planting becomes a bit of a chore as to "set in" each plant you set in you have to pull back the chips until you hit dirt then avoid getting chips in the planting hole as you put the seedling in. I use sheet mulching extensively on perennial bushes and trees but in the garden they are only used in paths that won't be tilled for several years. I opt for straw over wood chips in the actual garden as it breaks down annually.
Thanks Saij. Yes we had grass in the area and we put the cardboard right over the grass. We are noticing a few blades of grass popping through but it did a surprisingly good job so far. Time will tell. :)
So what exactly is a correct "Paula" unit of measurement? Glad I saw this now. I was about to go buy 10 10 10 fert but I'm fairly sure I can find compost & woodchips..at least straw & alfalfa. I may do half my garden regular & the other half this way (keeping plants in split order to see which has better results). I do agree with the mulch vs dessert
He’s right… explaining stuff is totally his thing
What i consistently love about you guys is that your videos are actually rooted in common sense instead of hype. Alot of channels preach common sense but they coukd take a lesson from yours. Always a pleasure to follow your journey.
That is so nice. Thanks Great Western Gardens, that means a lot. :)
@@iamorganicgardening .... except that organic-matter mulches and compost are pulled into the soil (as they degrade enough) by the soil critters, mostly earthworms. The plant roots add their own organic matter, exudates, encourages fungal/bacterial/plant symbioses, and rot down into in-situ "compost". OM mulches and compost don't interfere with this process but add to its effectiveness. In this case, it's not a zero-sum game.
I have watched SO many lengthy videos on BTE. This is by far the best explanation of how it works! Short, precise, very clear, well done!
I have found it best to start a wood chip garden area with at least 8-10 inches, and the chips improve over the years as it decomposes, but it is best to keep adding more chips every year or every other year. In the beginning, you will still need to throw comfrey tea or something around the plants (just throw the tea ontop of the chips and the rain will water it in) as the fresh chips just don't put off enough decaying compost tea as they will in a year or two.
Having your chips 8-10 inches deep will be a blessing to you as it helps to keep moisture in to the point that even during a drought the tomatoes or other goodies in the wood chips do not need watering! Its great. But for sure, more than a couple inches of chips or you will be disappointed with the amount of work to maintain such a shallow application, they dry out much quicker too at only 3 inches, best to do it deep to begin with ;)
Back to Eden Garden got me excited about gardening. 4 years in and I’m SUPER happy with this method.
We have a huge amount of oak leaves in the fall. For years we have mounded them up either waited for them to decompose or lately we started using them as mulch and then pull them aside to plant. I just recently learned this is a ‘thing’. Awesome!
Amazing video. My family just started a plot in my church's public garden. And it so happens that we are using the back to eden method.
i got addicted to Paula's voice! She sounds like a garden fairy ☺️
this is the first video I've seen that does such a good job of explaining natural gardening methods, especially the less work methods. Thank you so much! Please keep the videos coming. They are so helpful.
We started this method in 2017 atop very sandy soil and ended up with a 30 x 40 plot. The vegetable yield was awesome! This is our first food garden and we were blown away. We used free cardboard from clean recycle dumpsters. The rest was as you did here. We grew 12 different veggies including garlic and organic potatoes we had that sprouted 😁. We sprt of put the potatoes in as a test and were amazed at what a few cur up potatoes yielded. We also used the method to cover the soil around our raspberries and blueberries which really took off after we did that. After such a successful 1st season we added herb beds on the 30’ edge this garden. I cannot wait to plant 2018!! This works very well and we had almost no weeding or watering. The garden has 5 young fruit trees on the 40’ side. I would recommend this to anyone especially those who think dogging and tilling is preventing them from starting a garden. We did none of that and we bought a huge tiller. We never used it!
Excellent brief version of the Back to Eden documentary.
Will be sharing with my mates.
My husband and I LOVE watching your videos. One day.. One day we'll have the space.
I like you guys. You seem happy, content and enjoying nature. That's how I am when I'm outside working. I have been gardening since 2008 but just found out about all these other techniques. My granddaughter and I started farming hens (just 3). I want to be able to sustain myself as well as my extended family. Stay bless!!!!
Haha. "Woodchips!"
You two are so cute together. I aspire to be as happy and co-productive in my own marriage one day, God willing.
Now you are speaking my language! My small yard is BTE. The main difference is language. Instead of sheet-mulch, the wood chips (or hay as RS uses) is referred to as the cover. Sometimes the first year or two can be disappointing because of the time it can take for the cover to start breaking down and making "compost tea" from the cover. (I see you hedged your bets by putting down a layer of compost under the cover) Many, like us, keep a compost pile. The beauty of BTE is that we no longer turn our compost regularly. Once a year, usually after the pumpkin harvest, we turn the rough compost back into the compost pile AFTER screening the fine, decomposed bits into the wheelbarrow. Then in the fall, we toss the fine compost (and it IS amazing and sweet) onto the chips, to be rained into the soil as compost tea (we learned this from Paul Gautschi, the subject of the Back to Eden film). We are in our 3rd year and will not go back. If there were space I would tell you how amazing this method is for our tomatoes, corn, beans, squash, apples and pears... but you should find out for yourself, because as I like to say when sharing my experience ...your mileage may vary.
Debs in Everett, WA (USA)
Thanks so much for sharing Deb, it is very helpful! :)
Whats BTE??
This info you have is fantastic....I have just started a 850 sqft rooftop garden in Algarve Portugal and am using all compost from my juice bar that my new worm farm is helping out with. I want to implament this technique on my farm.. im using all recycled fruit baskets and pallets for shelves, the idea is to feed my and Anna also providing some very valuable produce for my juice bar.. I am definitely greatful I found all this info.
your videis are wonderfully done and explained so well in terms of natural processes or what mother nature does. Keep up the good work.
excellent! you guys inspire me and my partner so much! we plan to buy a stretch of land this summer after working a couple of years in warehousing ( crap job, but pays well with overtime). Hopefully we have enough resources in us to work with permaculture! We are waiting for the next video! Love!
Beautiful video by a beautiful couple!
Hey Derek, you should submit your videos to a TV station. You are a great presenter. Permaculture can be used in small suburban gardens as well. You make it so understandable. Have watched all your videos from the get go. Cheers from Australia.
Thanks for watching from the beginning Christine!
I have said the same thing...Derrick is an great presenter in my opinion too.
Bye for now,
Paula
Be like nature and you'll be just fine. Man you're brilliant!
Like the concept of Building the soil with compost and then wood chip.
You also need to mulch the pathways between beds to reduce weeds in walkway.
Love your simple but full explanation on how things work. Very helpful and to the point. Keep up the good work.
Hey, y'all...you can keep deer out successfully with just a knee high single strand electric fence. We've done it like that for over 40 years, so that stockade you have planned isn't going to be necessary. Love watching your experiments! I have been doing BTE for the past 3 yrs but have had trouble sourcing chips enough, so switching to hay this year. Love it so far and it's cheap, easy to use and easily sourced. Can't wait to see how it does this spring.
I'm pleased to see you do this. I'm working on a quarter acre on Back to Eden garden just outside of Waterloo this spring after a huge success in my small backyard garden last year. I hope this goes well for you.
Thanks Murray! We hope yours goes well for you too!! So glad to hear your previous one was such a success...that gives us hope. :)
It feels really weird to me from my French eyes seeing all these different methods being given different names whereas they all have the same goal : building a living soil that'll feed and protect your plants. In France I like that we call it "agriculture sol vivant" or "living soil farming". And this term encompasses all the methods you're mentioning : straw, hay, wood chips... It also works with cover crops (although the timing is delicate, so people usually use both cover crops and mulch). And you can use compost or manure as well, basically living soil farming is about building a living soil with whatever materials you have nearby. It's also not exclusively organic, and it's either for family gardens or larger farms. At the moment about 200 farmers are doing in France. Some use ramial wood chips, some use straw, some use hay... It depends what you have, and how good your soil is when you start. If your soil is poor, you may have to supplement with compost or manure in the beginning, as the mulch won't have time to build humus and generate fertility and you create what's called nitrogen depletion. And no, it does not only happen when you till the soil, that is completely false. Those 200 farmers know it well. It also happens if you start a mulch on a soil that was PREVIOUSLY tilled in the past and is low in fertility. The important parameter is the organic matter percentage in your soil. A good soil has 4-6 %, with an average of 4.5 in France. Soils tilled to death in my country have sunk as low as 1% which is a disaster. It's a soil that's just rock, and you can't farm without fertilizers and tillage, your plants are often sick, and you get a ton of weeds because the soil is a living organism and is trying to use weeds to heal itself. With a permanent mulch, you gain 0.5 % of organic matter every 2 years... So it's a very long process to restore those soils... And on these soils, if you put 10 cm of wood chips with nothing else, you'll have a disaster. If it's not too compacted, you can just add compost to combat the inevitable nitrogen depletion. If it's compacted, you need to incorporate the mulch in the first 10 cm, to help the earthworms who can't break that surface crust, and add more mulch on top. If you put mulch on an old meadow, forest, or wildflower field, that hasn't been tilled in the last 10-15 years, then yeah there's enough nitrogen reserves so that adding the mulch won't become a problem. Nitrogen is stored in humus in stable form, and is leaked in mineralized form continuously to be available for plants.
That's impressive. Thanks for sharing. I'm UK based and just started gardening. It has been difficult to fathom why the soil has not been fertile enough to support the growing of vegetables which in an otherwise temperate climate should be easy with all the moisture we have here. Your explanation is very concise and logical. So my understanding is to support the soil with horse manure, compost and mulch which should at least begin the process of revitalising a depleted soil and continue to build on that over time - perhaps planting as much as I can but not expecting much in return. At least to begin with. Thanks once again.
@@Phoenix-kf4xo Yes it can take time. But some stuff will grow even in a poor soil. In a compacted clay soil, salads tomatoes and squashes should do fine. In a poor loamy soil, you can try legumes like peas, fava beans, or not too hungry root vegetables like radishes, carrots and turnips. And aromatic herbs will work anywhere. On areas you're not using, just sow some green manure : canola, rye, vetch, clover, buckwheat, mustard... They look good, and they smother unwanted weeds. Once in flower, you either cut them down or roll them over, to kill them. Leave them on the ground, and that's your mulch. You can then sow directly into this or transplant stuff grown from seed in trays.
Also, rain will not necessarily work to your advantage. Long term, rain will compact a naked tilled soil, as there's no living organism in it to keep it together. It'll also wash away nutrients, especially nitrogen in tilled soils. So yes rain is good, but only if you have mulch to protect your soil, otherwise it turns into a problem. In Brazil and Argentina, most of their crop farming is now done with green manure and no till, with direct sowing into the mulched green manure, because there is so much rain it creates giant crevasses in their land if they till it...
@@nicolasbertin8552 thank you. That's very helpful
Awesome! Thank you! (Wondering if some cat litter would help. 🤣 I use paper based litter, but the poo should be burned first, right?
Great explanation. Thank you
How am I just now seeing this channel?! It is gardening meets Bill Nye the Science Guy
Oh my goodness, you have no idea how happy this comment made me! :)
Thanks for watching. And thanks for the Bill Nye comparison!
vertfreak09 i seriously thought the same thing! Totally Bill Nye the gardner hah! Great video!
vertfreak09 bill Nye sucks though
You mean Bill Nye the communist guy?
He does Bill Nye way better than Bill Nye does Bill Nye!
Guys... You inspired me! I looked way more into back to eden gardening, and since I was already preparing flower beds and looking what to do for another plot... You've made it too obvious! I am headed to pick up some trailers full of wood chips now! I already cleared the sod in those areas, but I'll lay down some paper anyway! I also took this opportunity to toss all my yard waste and partially composted materials into a trench. I plan on planting just the edge of that much lime you did with the lettuce in your hugelkultur that first year. And I'll let everything behind it just become amazing for next year/season while I fill the other spot! Thank you for the inspiration! (btw I dug a 1m x 3m trench since I saw this video.... 16 hours ago.... I did it entirely in the dark last night, my neighbor had a pretty large light out back and my eyes adjusted eventually.
Oh my goodness Will! I love your energy!
Please keep us posted on your progress! :)
@@BackToReality I told you... I've been laid up for a couple months! It was terrible hobbling around inside!
Very nice . Tons of back to eden videos out there now, but this one paints a simple clear picture of how it works. Thx
You do an amazing job at describing the terminology used with gardening. I totally agree with the science guy vibe!
I've done a heap of vegie gardening with wood chips - two things. Gaucci mentions this - you NEED to add chicken manure constantly to the top of the wood chips - just sprinkle it over. You also need to add more wood chips - they break down real fast. Also with the cardboard your weeds don't look to bad - in a highly fertile climate gass like cooch will just grow under the cardboard - so you should put down a base layer of pure manure and some blood and bone, then news paper and wet it - this "suffocates" everything - THEN cardboard.
Would it be possible to substitute the chicken manure for other types? Also, how is the climate where you live? I'm here in Canada and trying to start a back to eden garden
@@shen6250 The thing about spreading manure on the TOP of the chips is that as it gets watered, and weathered it breaks down and feeds the chips / soil / myceleum. Sea weed as well.
Consider the impacts of freezing on water in the chips - think it should be ok.
@@audas Ohhh I see. So are you saying I should put manure as a layer below the chips? And thank you for the advice. Definitely need to think about how freezing will affect things. I'm just hoping to get the wood chips to break down quickly
@@shen6250 No - you spread it over the top of the chips.
You should prepare your beds first - I use a layer of manure on the ground, then newspaper wet, then cardboard, then layer up with a "lasange" bed - or just use excellent composted soil. If you use lasange you MUST wait till it is broken down (several months). Then on top of this wood chips. Then when I plant you pull back the chips and plant into the soil - I generally add soil at this point.
You need to keep adding wood chips as they break down very quickly - probably once a year depending on how deep they are. Spread manure over the top, or any other organic material to compost down. Never till or disturb the chips.
If you just want to wood chip over the top of normal soil you would have to till the soil below, then news paper and cardboard and then wood chips. You could do it without tilling the soil but you would have to wait several months I would think.
@@audas wow! Thank you so much for that information. So with the first method of using a layer of wet newspaper then cardboard and then "excellent composted soil", is there a certain amount of time you wait before planting? And by "adding soil" you mean putting some on top after pulling back the wood chips and planting.
In terms of not tilling or disturbing the chips, you mean other than when moving them aside gently to plant in the soil correct?
Just some additional information: my home is new so the backyard has only been put in place for two years. There was topsoil and I put some compost over it last summer. There is a fair amount of clay in the ground as well.
Thank you so much for answering these questions. This is the first time I've had a real backyard and I'm excited to do things the right way.
Wow your explanation, visuals, and content are fenomenal!! Thank you! I'm just taking a permaculture design course and stumble upon your channel, beautiful work! 👏👐💯
Great explanation!!! In depth with an executive summary. Love it!
Touches on so much! Excellent....I'd like more experiments with weeds - as in not actually removing them, except for immediately around the plant...I saw 'the morning gardener,' does this. HIs garden, full of weeds, and he just pulled some out a few inches around for his seedling, and planted right in there, great, fluffy soil...And- the gophers stuck to the weed roots, and left his plants alone!
I really like the way you explain everything. Your animations are excellent and do a wonderful job of illustrating what you're talking about.
Great video guy and gal. And awesome graphics.
Super Rad! I went from 2 raised beds to a 50x25 "deep mulch" garden - I covered half the garden in woodchips, and half is just fall leaves. That was in November of last year, and now that it is actually planting time, I'm basically ignoring the wood chip side in favor of the leaf mulch side. My wood chips were WAY too thick - or at least it seems that way. I think I had too many sticks and not enough "chips" - but I look forward to seeing the results of your B2E bed this year :)
great vid as always. good to see all the different methods
Thanks Paul!
The paper I used was the large roles of paper you can buy at Home Depot and other home improvement stores. Makes covering large areas super easy.
Thanks for the tip Punky Rooster. :)
Go to local newspaper office and ask for spools end rolls. It is clean paper, inexpensive, and breaks down readily.
Thank you for sharing, was wondering what I should use besides cardboard or newspaper which are not easily accessible for me.
Thanks guys for your awesome effort! And high quality videos! Any time I feel stressed from the city I go running to your channel 👍🏽
What a nice comment...thanks Aldo. :)
Thanks for sharing. I think I was thinking to much and you made it more simple to understand. Have a great day
You'll have to weed it in a couple of years. The woodchips will break down. Fungus will break down the woodchips and the worms will make them into wormcastings. If you don't want to do much weeding you will need to add more woodchips. But at least it is easier to pull the weeds. But what you did is wonderful and I grew a bumper crop of butternut squash in a bed I prepared similar to what you did in this video. A few years of adding to your soil like this will restore it to it's natural fertility.
Great presentation. I'm enjoying the scientific experiment. We have done a back to eden style this summer, and with a second growing season in zone 9a, getting a first stab at cool weather crops right away. Nice garlic bed LOL i can only imagine that garlic expansion.
This reminds me of a story from Japan which I've heard from a tv documentary, because of rapid deforestation, topsoil eroded and winds further the erosion. So they seek help and came with the idea of mulching. But because of strong wind, it quickly blew away, so they mix with seaweed instead because it was heavy and moisture retaining!
love you guys. ..it is so much fun to listen to the way you present it
Very good video and the effort you put into the graphics really helps. Thanks
There is actually a big difference between wood chips and other sheet mulches, and its fungi. Fungi is what is key to a forest to hold and move water and nutrients around to the network of plants and trees in it. That's why it is so important to get wood into the growing layers, from chop and drop methods etc, to mimick what nature does naturally through falling branches and trees that feed the fungi in a self sustaining forest.
I started with this method, but have evolved into using a more woody mulch from coarser material with branches with leaves from hedges and chop and drop, because they attract far more plant friendly insects like mantis and spiders etc to help control pests. The chips create more of a friendly bug desert
I found you two by accident one day about a month ago and I look forward to seeing your videos! Congratulations on the new home
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You. I started BTE a year ago and my only regret is that I didn't start it 20 years ago. Love this Video. Awesome Job.
Thanks for sharing Shannon!
I like that in this channel most of what you say is common sense... which is the least common of the senses. cheers for that guys you rock!!
Wow this is amazing. So lucky to have found your videos
You are a REALLY good teacher.
Congrats on your Back To Eden garden. I going to be planting my third year in this method of gardening. One thing maybe you should have added is when adding the chips, use leaves too. I have talked to so many here in maine and online friends about the BTE and they go out and buy bag after bag of wood chips from the big box stores. Yes it will probably help some, bot not like the mulch that you get from chipping brush, or from the tree services that chip up trees, limbs and the leaves.
I have watched a few of your videos now and excited to follow up on this one and also subscribed.
Many blessings to you and your family,
Jim
"One thing maybe you should have added is when adding the chips, use leaves too." yep
THAT was an excellent explanation! And another great video. BTW - with the mulch, keep an eye on your pH levels. Some mulches can change your pH quickly. Can't wait to see what's next!
Thanks for the tip Uncle Lar. We will keep our eye on it. :)
As usual, it's always best to imitate nature! And you have such a good way of explaining things.
The way you 2 do your videos is so informative, & to the point. it's so great.
Thanks for explaining the nitrogen connection! This is the part I didn’t understand until today.
Las ramas de los árboles, se descomponen y sueltan la tierra. Es interesante ponerlas.
Un saludo, amigo.
Back to Eden is more than a sheet layer. It's constant building of the soil and putting back more than you take out. Big difference.
Hi I enjoyed your video, two years ago I came across the BTE method and I added 8" of tree mulch to my existing planting areas and 13" to my orchard. My soil was already a rich nearly black colour and had lots of worms. It was Autumn when I started and my beds where full of weeds, I stepped on them to flatten them and then added my mulch. I left it alone for nearly 8 months and sprinkled pelletised chicken poo on top of the mulch. By Spring time my garden was ready for me to move the mulch and plant into my soil. I did ensure the mulch was moist as this helps it break down and I also use compost tea once a month.
I have had great success with tree mulch and two years down I am actually having to remove some soil as I have run out of height in my raised beds. We have very hot summers and lots of wind storms here but the mulch protects my soil and roots and my plants produce lots of fresh fruit/berries/veggies.
Thanks for sharing that! It's fun to see you guys work together
There's a couple of things many gardeners got wrong about Ruth Stout and Paul Gautschi ('Back to Eden'). First, they both tilled for years before adopting no till methods. Second, Paul used wood chips in the orchard, but never used wood chips in the vegetable garden. Instead, he uses compost from his chicken run and even buys finished compost instead.
Actually I think Paul got it wrong...he looked in the forest and somehow deduced that wood chips were an answer. But the forest doesn't drop wood chips, but instead drops leaves and needles. So for what it's worth, I think a smarter mulch is shredded leaves and grass clippings. 😊
great video, but a quick note on the back to eden method: The woodchips that paul recommends are branches and leaves (basically a compost pile with carbon and nitrogen). Your mix may not have enough nitrogen for this first year, so don't give up on it if that's the case. If you have chickens just use their compost on top
Another really great and educational video! I always look forward to your new content! Thank you very much for sharing! All the best :)
Your channel is amazing guys! Amazing use of visuals, common sense and easy to follow explanations. I had success using various combinations of companion planting and planting undesirables like garlic on the edges as opposed to fencing. We still lose a little here and there to my worst enemy the rabbits, but all in all it is working out great.
Excellent video - you're very good at explaining things :-) I use a variety of mulches in my no-dig garden (straw, hay, spent mushroom compost, grass clippings, coffee grounds...) depending on what I have and what veggies I'm growing. However, I prefer using woodchips as a mulch for my perennial edible plants. This year we're clearing a new area under our apple trees - we covered that with cardboard + wood chips and I'm planting winter squash and zucchini through the mulch. Next year the herb layer will be planted with a mix of perennial vegetables. We're doing this in phases since the herb layer requires an enormous amount of plants and we're growing most of these ourselves to save money.
❤ your video's 👍, been watching since the beginning. love what your doing. thanks for all that information.
Wow, thanks for watching from the beginning!! We sure have changed since then. :)
yes, it has been a fantastic journey! i love that you both are so free and gave broken out of society's box. also love how you explain what your doing and the information you give. i do little movies for family, i know content and editing is not easy. your video's are mych appreciated.
ABSOLUTELY SUBSCRIBED AND GRATEFUL FOR THIS CHANEL!!!!
From all the research I've done, I've come to understand that annual beds prefer straw, hay, and green mulch, while perennial beds (as well as trees and shrubs) prefer wood chips and leaves. This is because annuals tend to grow better in bacteria-dominated soil (higher nitrogen balance), while perennials and woody plants grow better in fungal-dominated soil (higher carbon balance + cellulose and lignin). But I haven't done any scientific tests to confirm that, and I'm sure that regardless which mulch type you use, a deep-mulched bed will build soft, rich soil that's vastly superior to conventional gardens.
I also came to the same conclusion, i totaly agree with this.
if you guys plan to continue to smother out grass with things like paper and cardboard, a good place to look for free materials would be college dorm dumpsters. At the start of each new semester students usually toss out so many cardboard boxes that the dumpsters are over flowing. Don't forget your box cutters ;)
What a great suggestion! Might as well use them in our garden, rather than just littering the landfill! Thanks!
I always learn so much from your videos. 😀
I love the way you explain things. However I was under the impression that A. the BTE garden needed to be constructed in the fall to give the process time to break down and B. that a layer of manure went under the layer of compost. It will be very interesting to see the results of the different gardening methods.
We will see how it all works. We did want to get the garden in before the winter for that reason but the snow came too soon. That said our pile of wood chips was outside for the winter months. Not sure that will do what you are saying but we will see...fingers crossed :) Thanks so much for watching.
Great info.-- presented nicely and methodically. 😃
I love your videos. Very well splain.
Hello from Spain.
6:31 In my area Cardboard seems to create the perfect habitat for invasive flatworms, FYI.
Oh good to know. We will watch for that. Thanks amoore67.
You guys are awesome! I love your videos! Keep up the amazing work!
Great video!
*Goes back to actually watch it.
Lol, we very much appreciate you you having so much confidence in our video :)
Paula is wearing a jacket and you a T shirt, was it 65 degrees 😂😂 As always a good job.
LOL...Paula is ALWAYS cold. :)
Thanks Craig, that's really nice of you to say.
This is an amazing channel. Your editing skills are amazing.
Thanks so much! :)
Thank you for this clear explanation! Very good video for a beginner :)
I really like your video, very informative and entertainment too 😊 thanks for sharing, great work.
So do the roots grow through the paper?
Really appreciate the cptr graphics, well-made vid.
Thank you for the info and the effort you put into it!
No problem Rory! Thanks for the comment!
Mulch builds soil:)
I think that pun was planted
This was an organic response.
Oh yeah, I forgot.
ok that was hilarious and adorable and informative! Please do more! :)
I respect what you do. Keep going
This was pretty cool! Thanks for the guide, job well done - very nicely presented.
Very well explain !!!👍🏼🌱
desertification is primarily caused by overgrazing and clearfelling. Once the organic layer is gone, the soil cannot retain moisture and the water runs away instead of being held, which leads to further degradation of the soil.
There are down sides to sheet mulching with wood chips. For all practical purposes you can't til a seed bed. Any annual planting becomes a bit of a chore as to "set in" each plant you set in you have to pull back the chips until you hit dirt then avoid getting chips in the planting hole as you put the seedling in. I use sheet mulching extensively on perennial bushes and trees but in the garden they are only used in paths that won't be tilled for several years. I opt for straw over wood chips in the actual garden as it breaks down annually.
Great video. I think the most important thing about back to Eden is no Tiling
Thank you! Great video
Great presentation!!!
Thanks Elpida! :)
Great video will try on smaller scale.
What gets me is the hay method is basically exactly how people plant new lawns.
Great video! Question: Did you have grass in the area that you are gardening that you removed first or did you lay the cardboard right over grass?
Thanks Saij. Yes we had grass in the area and we put the cardboard right over the grass. We are noticing a few blades of grass popping through but it did a surprisingly good job so far. Time will tell. :)
Thumbs up. ENJOY... THE SIMPLE LIFE
Very Helpful nice video! Thank you!
So what exactly is a correct "Paula" unit of measurement?
Glad I saw this now. I was about to go buy 10 10 10 fert but I'm fairly sure I can find compost & woodchips..at least straw & alfalfa.
I may do half my garden regular & the other half this way (keeping plants in split order to see which has better results). I do agree with the mulch vs dessert