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Thanks for the feedback! I'll do 2 replies, one for the garden and one for the website to keep them separate.

Regarding the garden... I am assuming you have established it for a few years so you aren't trying to kill sod.

Do you tend to plant in rows? Do you have established paths?

I would mix the things you mentioned with the exception of the wood chips and lay that down. To start out, I normally put down 2-5 gallons of biochar per 32 square feet depending on what I have on hand... so for your application on 1000 square that's like 50ish to 200ish gallons evenly spread which is a lot.

It will be good to mix in the biochar in the fall so it charges over winter.

So if you plant into rows/beds, apply your manure/ compost/ biochar mix heavy in the areas you plant so you don't need so much biochar. This is what we do at our church garden, just apply to beds.

If you till, till this in but not deep... 2 inches should be good.

Then woodchips on top, thicker on the paths and thinner on your bed. This will keep in the moisture but not tie up nitrogen while it decomposes.

If you care to, put in some winecap mushroom spawn in the pathways to start breaking down the chips.

In future years, you'll amend the beds with your manure mix, take your aged wood chips from the paths and shovel as mulch on the beds, and add fresh wood chips to the paths.

Keith 2y ago

This is great advice! It’s my first year gardening in this spot but I’ve been working on the soil for three years. There used to be a large brush pile that I burned in place the first year. The second year I covered the area with black plastic and let the summer sun bake all the weeds to death. Last year I borrowed a wood chipper and covered the entire area with chips from decaying branches I picked up from the nearby woods.

My soil is thick Tennessee red clay. I couldn’t till if I wanted to. Do you think biochar will help loosen up the soil?

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Discussion

CP 2y ago

What will really help here is follow my advice but before you lay down the wood chips, plant some daikon radish seeds into the compost/biochar/manure mix. You do not have to plant deep!

These will drill channels down into your soil and scavenge nitrogen and nutrients from the manure.

If you cover this with woodchips, go easy, only an inch or so, so the radishes can find their way up to sunlight.

Next spring when you kill them (by chopping the tops off), as the radish decays, your compost/ biochar/manure mix well fall into the channels and begin to deepen yor soil!

On my soil here these guys will go down 6-9 inches and most winter kill.

Here is where I get my seed

https://www.deercreekseed.com/daikon-oil-seed-radish#168=137

Keith 2y ago

I had heard about planting daikon radishes before. I never thought to mix them in. That will make life so easy. Also, thanks for the link. That’s a great price.