container fill

[Jeannine Anne]

I have to fill 4 very large deep raised beds. I have access to free bark chips as much as I want. It is fresh and mostly chestnut and has some leaves chopped in with it. It has just recently been chipped from cut down young trees at our community gardens.
Can I put it down as a starter layer in the boxes to cut down the amount of other soils I have to get.
Or can it be put in as part of the mix and blended in.

If so how deep a layer could I use.

Appreciateany help

XX Jeannine

[rnewste]

I would really avoid using any Hardwoods in a container. The resins can leach out over time and damage vegetable plants pretty severely. Try to find Pine or any Fir bark instead.

Raybo

[peppero]

Originally Posted by Jeannine Anne

I have to fill 4 very large deep raised beds. I have access to free bark chips as much as I want. It is fresh and mostly chestnut and has some leaves chopped in with it. It has just recently been chipped from cut down young trees at our community gardens.
Can I put it down as a starter layer in the boxes to cut down the amount of other soils I have to get.
Or can it be put in as part of the mix and blended in.

If so how deep a layer could I use.

Appreciateany help

XX Jeannine

i use gumballs off the the gum trees i have and chopped leaves as well as rotted limbs. so far, so good. i put them from 1/4 to 1/2. jon

[delltraveller]

I usually put a layer of small branches, leaves and twigs into the bottom of new raised beds. I suppose it probably takes up a couple of inches. My raised beds are on the ground and open at the bottom, so I guess I don't run into the problem that Ray mentions. In my buckets and pots I mix in some pine bark mulch, usually.

[Jeannine Anne]

The beds are bottomless and sitting on the ground, would that make a difference to the hardwood chips XX Jeannine

[dice]

Probably, sitting on the ground like that is fine. I have not
heard bad things about chestnut. Walnut and ash are
the woods one should avoid (juglone). There will be some
nitrogen drawdown the first year (bacteria using nitrogen
out of the surrounding soil to digest the wood). You might
sprinkle some slow-release lawn food around on it to
equalize that (lawn food is high-nitrogen fertilizer;
watch out for Weed and Feed, you do not want that).

Normally lawn food would be higher nitrogen than you
would want for vegetables, but on a layer of wood chips
or on soil with maybe 1/4 to 1/3 wood chips mixed through
it, bacteria will make use of the extra nitrogen to digest
the wood.

How much lawn food? I have no way to estimate,
so I would simply scatter it around moderately and then
watch the plants for signs of nitrogen deficiency (add more
if they turn yellow from the bottom up).

For all-organic, you could scatter fish meal or blood meal
around on it instead of lawn food. (There are some organic
lawn foods, too, but they typically cost more.)

[habitat_gardener]

On the gw soil forum years ago, the standard recommendation for quick free compost was to get a pile of mulch from tree trimmers and add liquid gold. This was a more popular suggestion for those in rural areas or with secluded backyards; not so popular if the pile was in view of neighbors who might ask questions.

You can also use coffee grounds as a filler, but they have to be mixed with soil so they don't form a crust or an impermeable layer. I don't drink the stuff, so the only reason I enter a coffee shop is to get bags of grounds.

[ljp]

I use my raised beds as compost piles. I use the bottom as a lasagna bed and put a layer of potting/compost on top to plant in. My goal is to produce enough compost to replace my potting soil purchases. The beds do sink over the season; however, they do it evenly and the plants aren't affected.

[coloken]

Forgive me for streching this question out a little broader. I have lots of elm, little twigs, maybe small branches, and leaves that i rake up and run through my grinder. Where does elm come in? Need nitrogen? other wise OK? Last year i used a portion mixed in with in my raised bed with other stuff and it seemed to be all right. Right now i need mulch very badly.
KennyP

[Jeannine Anne]

Thank you for the help, the chippings are now in , followed by peat and manure, then finished filling with finished compost from the community pile. Churned up I think it will have to do. We plant to plant garlic in them in October thos year so there will ne planty of time for the mix to settle etc.

XX Jeannine

[dice]

Elm will use nitrogen from the soil, but I do not know of anything
toxic to vegetables in it. It will probably work ok.

The bit about nitrogen drawdown is common knowledge (wood has
a high carbon/nitrogen ratio). A study in Sudan where they amended
soil with wood chips to try to mitigate some disease or other negative
soil condition that is chronic there is where the information about
"first year" came from. The first year, using the same fertilizers, water,
etc, that they normally use, there was a drop in production. The second
year and years after that there was no drop in production in the fields
amended with wood chips.

(It occurs to me that temperature might have been a factor. There is
a lot of organic activity at high temperatures, and Sudan definitely
has those. So one perhaps needs to watch closely in the second year
after mixing in wood chips and see if the plants still need some
extra nitrogen beyond what they normally use in a season.)

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by delltraveller

I usually put a layer of small branches, leaves and twigs into the bottom of new raised beds. I suppose it probably takes up a couple of inches. My raised beds are on the ground and open at the bottom, so I guess I don't run into the problem that Ray mentions. In my buckets and pots I mix in some pine bark mulch, usually.

That sounds like a mini version of hugelkultur, long used in E. Europe and Germany, now being touted in permaculture circles. If you plant a deep-rooted crop now in the deep raised beds, the soil may be in even better shape by October.

[lakelady]

Originally Posted by Jeannine Anne

Thank you for the help, the chippings are now in , followed by peat and manure, then finished filling with finished compost from the community pile. Churned up I think it will have to do. We plant to plant garlic in them in October thos year so there will ne planty of time for the mix to settle etc.

XX Jeannine

Jeannnine, I think you should be fine by October with the added manure. Try wetting it down real well and covering it like you would for compost, stir it up a few times and get it warmed up and going like a hot compost pile. I had one going all winter (in much cooler temps) that was part compost and part leaf mold by Spring and the tomatoes in there are doing great!