Colorful and mind-refreshing, this is what everyone wants their garden to be. To be honest, achieving this is not easy peasy lemon squeezy. You need to shed blood, sweat, and tears. Tell us about your gardening journey. What so far have you tried to grow healthy vegetables and plants in your garden?
The ultimate goal of healthy soil is to use enriched supplements. The choice of growth promoters and mulches for the loam is an important decision, especially for the clay soil. After investigating the market, the best way to increase clay soil’s quality is by mixing wood chips in clay soil.
If you are wondering what wood chips are and why to use them, check the below comprehension.
Also check: Best Mulch For Clay Soil
Wood Chips Aplications
What do you think? What could be the use of these small wood chips? Well! There are several uses of these wood chips in textile, paper making, fuel, organic mulch, and wood products.
In the papermaking process, the wood chips are crushed into fine pieces. The wood fiber called cellulose is separated from another fiber: “lignin.” Cellulose is then chemically processed in the laboratory to prepare paper from it.
Wood chips are extracted from timber trees. Many industries are on a mission to cut down these trees and make wood chips from them. The use of wood chips to increase the quality of clay soil is traditional. Farmers believe that the use of wood chips can enhance the clay soil’s nature.
Do Wood Chips Help Clay Soil?
The answer is hell yes! As a farmer or gardener, you must know how time and energy consuming it is to grow healthy plants in the garden. You always look for fertilizer and growth promoters for your plants, but the general rule of thumb says it is not easy as it may seem.
You can’t trust any random mulch for soil growth promotion. All you need is to research and research. In our opinion, the best you can use for clay soil is the wood chips.
When you add mulch to your clay soil, it nourishes deeply, internally. Wood chips are high carbonated compounds that help the plants to grow and sustain themselves. When we provide water to them, they decompose in nitrogen presence, and insects break them down into smaller units.
Is it Safe to use Wood Chips?
There are still some gardeners and farmers who hesitate to use the wood chips in the clay soil. They often ask, is it safe to use wood chips in clay soil? To all those gardeners, the answer is yes! You can use wood chips to enhance the growth rate of the clay soil.
Wood chips mulch is one of the affordable ways to increase clay soil quality. If you still thinking about what is beyond this? Then check out the below benefits of using wood chips in clay soil.
Soil Remains Moist
Most outdoor plants face the situation of water shortage during the hot and dry summer times. No matter how adequate water you supply to them, they remain dry to the dry atmosphere.
By using wood chips in the clay soil, you can solve this issue like a pro. When you supply water to the plants, wood chips absorb the extra water. In dry conditions, when water is insufficient, wood chips then transfer the moisture to the plants.
Accurate Temperature Even in winter
Wood chips layers form an isolation layer above the seedlings to save them from excess environment temperature. That is why it is necessary to ensure the level of wood chips and seedlings in the soil.
Breakdown with Time
Mulches, other than wood chips available in the market, are synthetic and of rubber. These mulches do not increase the soil’s growth rate nor health rate.
When you use wood chips in the clay soil, they slowly break down as per time. This mulch, when breaking down, adds more growth ingredients to the soil bed.
Keeps Pests Away
By decreasing the flea population in the clay soil, wood chips inhibit the pests’ production in the clay soil up to a great extent. For this, the level of the wood chips in the soil should be at least 2-3 inches deep.
Wood chips of cypress and pine cedar trees are best for this job.
Controls Weeds
Weeds are irritating items in the garden. No matter how hard you try to stop them, they somehow make their place. Add a thick layer of wood chips to the clay soil and let the weeds try to grow.
In parts of the garden where you face the weed growth issue, use a WORX WG163 weed trimmer to kick them out.
Inhibits Soil Decay
Here is the last but solid benefit of using wood chips in the soil. Wood chips to provide a shielding layer to the soil bed. Wood chips hold the clay soil together naturally and prevent it from erosion. This practice is best during monsoon time. Excess water tries to disturb the soil’s stability, but wood chips present help to maintain durability.
How to Mix Wood Chips in Clay Soil- 5 Easy Steps
There is no such hard and cold scientific method for mixing wood chips in clay soil. You can do this even by yourself. But before you start to dig the ground to put the wood chips in, are you ready for the mess you are going to create?
The process for mixing the wood chips in the clay soil is pretty simple. For more convenience, we have described the procedure in five steps. Scroll down the article to read.
Dig the Clay Soil
First, wear your gardening before you start digging the ground. Make sure that you apply the safety protocols first. The best gardening gloves you can use are Amazon gardening gloves.
These leather gloves protect your hands from tentacles. Pretty affordable in price and high in quality, make sure to have these gloves while gardening in your garden.
Now after wearing your gloves, start digging the ground. Dig around 5-6 inches. Spread the soil to a level. Leveling the soil is essential because sometimes it does happen that some parts of the ground grow well, while others remain at their standard growth rate.
Spread the Seedlings
After leveling the soil spread the seedling you want to grow. Make sure that the level of the seedling is also even. Keep in mind that not all plants are suitable for wood chips. You may notice that some vegetables are growing well in the wood chips, while others not.
The growth rate of carrot, onion, and beetroot is high as compared to squash.
Cover with Clay Soil
Once the seedling spreading process is complete, cover the ground again with the clay soil. While covering the layers with the clay soil, don’t pat it too hard. Gently pat the soil so that the seedlings are not damaged.
Spread the Wood Chips
Now is the time for the magic. Spread the wood chips layer above the layer of the seedlings. Make sure that the level is at least 2-3 deep.
Spread the wood chips with your hands, or you can use any gardening tool as well.
Add Water
Here is the last step. Water always plays a crucial role in the growth of plants. While gardening the plants, you should use an adequate amount of water. Don’t over-damp the soil. Just moist it so that the wood chips can start doing their magic.
Conclusion
Without a doubt, wood chips are a great source to increase the clay soil quality and plants’ growth. While using the wood chips in your garden, make sure that you add an adequate amount of them. While mixing wood chips in clay soil, wearing gardening gloves is a must.
Instead of using synthetic and non-recycling mulch in your garden, use wood chips mulch for an eco-friendly environment. Renew your wood chips after 5-6 months, daily water the chips to keep them moist, and lastly, make sure to keep them a little far away from the house.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Is clay soil good for gardening?
Clay soil is a great option to use in gardening. Most pre-annual and annual plants grow in clay soil. Expert says plants that grow in clay soil report to have stronger roots than the others.
What is the best mulch for clay soil?
The best mulch for clay soil is non-other than wood chips mulch. This mulch is full of nutrition that is essential for plant growth.
Is it safe to add wood chips in the clay soil near home?
No! Don’t use wood chips near your home. The reason is that wood chips contain hazardous compounds that can easily pick fire.
