What’s the difference between soil and dirt? And why is no-till gardening with a thick layer of mulch so effective? To answer these qeustions we’re back in the “back-to-Eden” style suburban garden we toured earlier this week. This time Lex Case is telling us why he’s so passionate about living soil, and why he thinks deep mulch with wood chips is the easiest and best way to garden for food production.
The early spring tour of their garden, with Lex’s wife Erin, is here:
I have one more Back to Eden video with this wonderful family in which Erin plants out her cool weather tolerant seedlings, and you can see exactly how she pushes the wood chips aside to plant. Plus I’ll come back later in the season and show you what this garden looks like in full production!
Erin and Lex don’t have a YouTube channel. But they do have a product for sale! Check this out if you’re interested in a soil amendment that focuses on living soil. https://terrafreshhome.com
Enjoy!
***
You can hop over to the Skill of the Month Club FB group to share your thoughts or brag your homework. https://www.facebook.com/groups/363729293988483/
***
About the skill of the month club:
Part community, part skill-share, we’re just a group of people hanging out together and trying to encourage awesomeness in every category having to do with simple living, intentional living and homestead life. Esther will do the lessons in the first month, but as we go on to different skills we’ll be hearing from all sorts of experts!
Esther Emery is “the Homestead Wife” and the daughter of Carla Emery, author of The Encyclopedia of Country Living.
****
Esther’s book: What Falls From the Sky: How I Disconnected From the Internet and Reconnected With the God Who Made the Clouds — http://www.estheremery.com/books/ and everywhere books are sold.
Esther’s mom’s book: The Encyclopedia of Country Living http://amzn.to/2fMuOQM
Video Rating: / 5
Are you guys like living in the middle of nowhere?
one thing i see everybody over looking is that paul has a wood oven and heats with wood and when he cleans out his fireplace he put the ash and charcoal in the chicken pin and it become active biochar which holds water and nutrients and micr biochar can last for up to 600 years before it brakes down so the wood chips covers the earth and creates a moist area for bugs, worms, fungus, and mycro life and his biochar catches the nutrients and water and stop the nutrients from running off just my thoughts Paul is such a good man God bless
Thanks for another interesting video, Esther, and thanks for investing the time and effort needed to film and edit as much as you do.
Great video, but I'm really interested in that cob oven in the background. How's that working out?
Thank you!! I learned soo much that Im going to apply to my future garden!!! Thank you for the ripples in the water, I will pass on the info~
The man in this video has done his homework. This has been explained wonderfully. Thank you for posting this. A healthy plant will fight every disease comming its way.
You should see what my aisles in my garden are like! I covered them with cardboard and then opened bags of "shredded hardwood mulch" from the big box store (like Lowe's) and spread it on the cardboard. I did this because I need to do something to keep the weeds out of the aisles. It has been a good weed deterrent for about two years and now the soil in those aisles and the worm life is better than the soil I plant in in the rows! I need to put down new cardboard and more "shredded hardwood mulch." I've tried to use landscaping fabric covered with the same wood stuff in the aisles but some weeds, especially grasses and wild onions, grow through even the really expensive stuff from Johnny's. I don't want to use plastic in the aisles.
Came by to check out your channel get signed up for your free book that is going to be given to someone by Deep South Homestead YouTube channel.
Ruth Stout? What are your thoughts on her? I feel she is overlooked as far as a deep mulch garden.
I didn't realize this kind of gardening had a name? Now I'll be searching eden gardens for the rest of the night :)Thanks for sharing all of your tips and tricks. We only have a small space in our backyard, but, we too make good use of it. Last year I tried to leave the garden as natural as possible, no tilling, lots of leaves and sticks to decompose…and I found it worked. The garden was full of life – lots of worms where there were none before, little bugs, ants…yet, we didn't have any disease or pest bugs eating our stuff. This method seems to work.
wood chips have become rare and expensive here, since they are in use to produce 'green' electricity…
Nice work Esther! The way you cut that up made it look like I actually know what I'm talking about! 😉
What a nice guy. Very moving reason to develop a healthier partnership with the soil. Those chickens really enjoy digging around in that lovely soil.
How do you keep the wood chips from sucking the nitrogen out of the soil? Don't the wood chips need to break down for a couple of years before they start to release their nutrients and stop extracting them from the soil. Also, what pests can be harbored in the mulch? Great video and keep up the good work.
To break my very heavy clay soil, I used southern peas (Ozark Razorback). The type also produces huge biomass.
Good information. My husband and I have started a Back to Eden garden as a result of God's leading us to the Back to Eden film and Paul Gautschi. It is quite exciting to see our Creator at work. Thank you Esther for this video.
Another awesome video. What a great couple . I also love seeing the backbone of the garden garden this time of year. Free , local and sustainable is the way to go !
I want to do this so much!
Side note: the only piece of missing information is about tiling a Back to Eden garden. Don't do it! Never ever till the wood chips into the dirt. You will never need to do it. It will suck the nitrogen right out of the soil and disturb the micro ecosystems beneath.
Great vid, as ever. Can we see the pizza oven and hear the story behind it ?
Thanks and God Bless.