Over the last five months we've covered the old lawns and area under the oak tree with wood chips. Our landscaping plan is not to simply cover everything with mulch and walk away. Instead, we hope to improve the infrastructure by restoring and augmenting the soil. We've had some good winter rains this year which should also help.
 |
| Wood chip cover |
 |
| Section 1: moist soil and healthy root (an earthworm escaped) |
Is any of this actually helping the soil? This week I pulled back the woodchip cover to see what's happening underneath. I didn't know what to expect (if anything), but it can be satisfying to monitor progress. My plan was to pull aside the chips in three different sections and see what was happening "under the covers".
 |
| Section 2: loose clay soil |
 |
| Section 3: decomposing wood chips |
The soil was moist, which was expected since we've had several good storms pass through the San Francisco Bay Area in the last several months. In one section, the moss was no longer green (but its root mat was still intact), an earthworm raced for cover in the soil, and a nice healthy root was visible. In a second section, the clay soil broke up easily. In a third section, some of the lower-level wood chips showed a bit of fungus (I think this means decomposers are starting to work on them to break down the wood), and a bulb was pushing up through the mulch. Finally, under the bird bath, I found a little colony of white fungus (I think). I'll check again in several months to see what happens as the weather warms and turns dry. Stay tuned!
 |
| Decomposers under the bird bath |
No comments:
Post a Comment