Mr. Permaculture on Adventure #5 - Using Wood Chips to Fill Holes
Wood chips provide wonderful organic matter even to fill up holes. If you live in an urban or suburban area, they are free from the waste stream. All you need to do is to contact tree service companies. They'll be glad to deliver them to you for free.
The Problem
There was a big hole caused by run-off rainwater on a slope in my neighbor's property right next to mine. All rainwater from his yard adjacent to mine would carve out a gully, rush down to the hole, make it bigger, then go under the fence to my property, and cause erosion whenever it rained.
My neighbor is almost 90 years old. I don't see him pushing a wheelbarrow and using a shovel to fill the hole. So I offered to help.
Initial Solution
The first time I used fill dirt to fill the hole. Dirt is heavy. I pushed about 6 cubic yards of dirt to fill the hole and the area caused by erosion. It almost broke my back.
To my dismay, the dirt was washed away by the next heavy rain. It didn't help at all. :'-(
Final Solution
Then I thought about wood chips. There are air pockets between the wood chips where the water can flow through without washing them away. In addition, they are much lighter and easier to work with.
To my delight, they did indeed fix the problem. :-)
Photo below shows where the hole used to be on my neighbor's property. Wood chips have slowly broken down into compost but they weren't washed away even after some heavy rain for a whole year! Weeds have started to grow. The yard worker who is hired by my neighbor to mow the grass lawn will start to spray herbicide. So I need to do something very quickly.
By the way, have you noticed I use wood logs to slow down rainwater?
Today I added more wood chips.
It will be good for another year. :)
The mango tree on my property as shown below grows its roots under the wood chips. It will continue to feed on compost broken down from the wood chips and it will not be affected by any herbicides. I am sure it will be happy. So am I!
Have you seen the mango blossoms all over the tree? It's going to be a great year. We harvested at least 500 mangos from this tree last year!
In summary, I am simply mimicking how nature makes soil. Nature uses organic matter and lets them slowly break down to compost to make soil.
Thank you for reading my post. If you enjoyed it, please Upvote, Comment, Resteem and follow me @cheneats.
Other posts on my permaculture adventure:
This post has received gratitude of 1.00 % from @jout
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That's awesome! Help your neighbor as well as your mango tree (and fence)! I wish more neighbors were like that. I hear too many stories of elderly or disabled people getting cited by the city for not managing their yard. I just think, if the busybody neighbor who reported them would maybe help them instead... but I digress.
You are absolutely right! It's supposed to be a community of people caring and loving each other.
It's sad that people turn each other in instead of helping each other out. The closer the neighbor is, the worse it gets.
I guess we just need to be a good example and hope some will follow.
Thank you for your comments!
So I really enjoyed this post. Several reasons came to my mind. First of all we actually have a wood chipper and we use it all the time. To make walking paths through our gardens and to fill in holes. A chipper is quite a necessary when you have to cut down two dozen trees. Some overgrown amongst others and some dead. I was wondering what you did with all those mangoes.? I was also wondering is that water I see in the background? Great post
We eat as many fresh mangos as we can while they are still in season and freeze the rest so we can enjoy them later. :-) The water you see is a lake behind the house. It is a thermal mass to buffer extreme temperature so we can grow more tropical edible plants. ;-)
Wow!
We have a deep gully running next to our driveway on our new homestead. One of the first things I did when I got here was use the branches from trimming the trees to fill up the trench. Now, leaves have fallen in over them. If I ever get my hands on wood chips, I will have to fill in the gaps with those. Great post!
Thank you! Nature produces no waste. We simply mimic nature to get the best result! Excellent job!