working with wood chips ..

after the fellows from the city chipped the mountain of branches down at the community garden, there were two huge piles of chips .. those piles have since dwindled considerably .. by the time i got down to the garden yesterday, there was one relatively small pile left .. marilyn helped me moved three barrowfulls to a spot behind the greenhouse so i can carry on with transforming grass to chips between frank's and my garden bed and the greenhouse ..

jim h. and rick and shari were kind enough .. using the rows between mike and andria's bed .. to demonstrate one way of chipping the path .. jim had previously cut and removed the sod and then put down a heavy duty fabric .. the final touch, wood chips ..

i think this is a grand thing to be doing .. and not just between the beds, but as you'll see .. under the pergola .. under the entry way to the garden .. and as a pathway beside the  lasagne bed .. besides being aesthetically pleasing chipping various areas of the garden will cut down on the amount of grass to mow ..

this is jim harris' sod lifter .. it's a great tool .. there's an art to using this tool, and once one gets the hang of it (which i'm not sure i have), it speeds up the removal of the cut sod .. we used it to cut out the edges against the beds ..

then shari laid down cardboard .. like the fabric jim laid down, cardboard is meant to help keep the grass underneath from growing .. over time, we'll see which  method works for us .. we like to be optimistic ..

jim h. and jim l. and rick and shari, present on the day of the chipping, made a pile of chips for the garden to use .. on saturday, veronica filled the wheelbarrow with those chips ..

which were then spread under the pergola overtop of the cardboard  ..

this same procedure was used to make a pathway between the new lasagne bed and the herb garden beds ..






one idea that's out there is that eventually there will be much less grass to cut at the garden .. chips will be between many .. or all .. of the garden beds .. and around the greenhouse ..

and there will be a smaller, lovely, grassy green space between the pergola and the shed ..

it's a project that will evolve over time .. however, our first experience of community chipping seems to have been a success .. not just with the garden, but as evidenced by the quick disappearance of the chip piles .. i suspect the idea will catch on and eventually there will be plenty of chips for all in the ensuing years of spring and fall chipping ..