The Microbes are Happy!

In 2017 the neighbor cut down a grove of trees to make room for a new garage, the company he hired to do the job ran all the trees through a chipping machine. Since I can never seem to get my hands on enough organic material I walked over and asked if they would mind dumping some on my land. They asked me how much I wanted and I told them as much as I could get my grubby little hands on! It was somewhat humorous (at least I thought it was) that they would ask after every five loads or so if I was still okay with them bringing more and I assured them that I was quite happy!

Most of the chips were used as mulch on the borders of the garden, which worked great. Kept the grass and weeds from growing from within 10 feet of the garden, I hate mowing close to the gardens as it frequently damages my plants (I actually hate mowing altogether but that is a different matter). However, I wanted to turn some of the chips into compost. First of all wood chips left on a pile decay very slowly, as in several years. Yes you can find sites that claim in a matter of months but I have piles of wood chips, from 2017, that are still wood chips. Yes, they are decomposing, but its going to take a few more years.

However, midsummer, last year I started to mix some of the chips with grass and loose hay and that definitely resulted in the chips breaking down further than the ones that were still in the original pile. Then last week (5/2/2020) I then "turned" that pile and mixed in chicken manure, more grass clippings, and a couple other nitrogen sources. I was quite happy to see that the pile was around a balmy 148 degrees Fahrenheit this morning! I am confident that in two weeks that this pile will make a nice amendment to my Three Sisters Garden!

The picture below is of the compost pile, in the background you can see some of the wood chip pile and that they still look like wood chips!