- G'day, I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me, and in this video, I'm gonna show you what
happens to woodchip when you leave it smolder in
a big pile for several months. Let's get into it. (chirping) (gentle music) What you see here, is a cut that I've made into these big piles of
woodchip, as I've been using it to help fill our new raised garden beds. What's interesting are
the different layers of decomposition, or composting,
starting from the very top, and the further we go down,
the more interesting it gets, and the better, or more nutritious it is, for your plants when used in the garden. It has all got to do with this black stuff that is formed at the
bottom of these large piles. This is humus. No, not humorous, like my dad jokes are. Or, the humerus, a broken
bone in the forearm. And, this was not a shark bite. Or, hummus like the dip
made from chickpeas. Or, how mass, and, let's not go there. Humus is often called the final product of the composting process, whereby organic matter is composted down into a dark soil-like medium. And whilst that's sort of
true, it's not the full story. And, this cutaway here, in
these big woodchip piles, can give us a better idea
of how humus and compost is made without making it too complicated. Because, honestly, as a gardener, you just need to know how
good this is for your garden, and how stupidly easy it is to make. Let's start from the beginning. A few months ago, we got a heap of tree
lopping and chipping done. Normally, I would do my
own chipping and pruning, but for big jobs, I get the pros in, because they have the equipment and skills that, quite frankly, I don't. By the way, if you're in the
Bellmere or Caboolture area, and you need some tree
lopping or chipping done, get Aiden from Garden of Eden. Him and his team, are good. Anyway, Aiden is happy to
take away all the woodchip, and either give it to someone
else or take it to the dump. But, you should never let this happen, because you're missing
out on an opportunity to use this free nutritious,
organic matter back into your own garden. All you've got to do is
show them where to dump it, and then let nature do its own thing. Bonus tip, if you want free woodchip, all you've got to do is get
to know a woodchip chipper, or a tree lopper in your local area. And often, it's easier
for them and cheaper to deliver it to you, than
it is to take to the tip. Of course, make sure
you're getting good, clean, organic matter, and not
weeds or contaminated wood. But, a good tree lopper
will look after you. And it goes without saying, nothing beats your own organic matter, chipped up from your own property. Initially, when the
woodchip is dumped down in these big piles, it's fresh and it starts
decomposing straight away. And at the same time, it
heats up considerably. After a few weeks, it tends
to cool down somewhat, and then the smoldering diminishes, but the pile continues
to break down slowly. The bottom of the pile
usually breaks down quicker, because it's hotter down there. But also, because it's got
direct contact with microbes, fungi, other animals that
reside in the existing soil, and that allows them to
easily access the woodchip and transform it. Plus, humus is best and
faster, made anaerobically, or without oxygen. So, the deeper the pile, the less oxygen there is at the base. Whereas general compost,
and the initial stages of compost making, is
usually done aerobically, or with oxygen. And, that's why they use big machines when making compost commercially. So, they can turn these
big piles upside down every few weeks or so, and speed up the overall
composting process. However, in the backyard,
it's not that easy to do that, for the general backyard owner. I mean, we don't all have a big backhoe, or huge machine to keep
turning over these big piles. But, I would argue that
that's not needed anyway. In fact, it's better if
it's just left like this. By leaving these piles
alone for several months, and practically not doing any work at all, unless you call looking at
a pile of woodchip work, you can basically create
a garden resource better than anything you can buy. Now, let's look at these different stages, and perhaps assess how
they might be utilized in the garden. The top layer, maybe the first six inches, or in some cases up to a foot, hasn't broken down that much at all. Yes, it is weathered. It's weathered. It's dry. It's not the original color. As you can see, if I can
get that out of there, yeah, you can see these bigger
pieces and all that in there. Big pieces of woodchip
from the chipping process. But, it essentially hasn't
broken down much at all. But, getting down below the
foot, or towards the middle, and even further down, you can see the transformation. I mean, it's slightly different
material here and there, but essentially, you'll get what I mean. It's retained most of its original color. It's still that sort of brown material when it was woodchipped, maybe
it's lost a lot of the grain. However, see how finer it is. There's no longer, it's sawdusty. There's not as many big pieces of woodchip in this handful at all. There's other fibers and
that mixed up with it. But, like there's a woodchip
that used to be a woodchip. You can see how smaller it is, and how it's being eaten
away, and almost dissolving. This is what heat, fungi, microbes, and other animals like wood roaches are doing to the materials. And finally, at the base,
say about six inches from the bottom, you can
see how the plant material has turned black. Now, is this because it
got so hot down there that it got burnt, like charcoal? No, not really. What it is, is this is humus going, and it's made through a
process called humification. And, now, some people are going to say, "Mark, you've got sticks
in that through there." And, that's true, humus is
usually a lot more finer than this, but this is the
beginning of that process. And, it's getting quite close to it. Look how dark that is and beautiful it is. It smells great. Humification is the
composting, slash, decomposing, fermentation, and other
chemical reactions from fungi, microbes, animals like worms, transforming all this material
into a humus substance, which incidentally captures carbon. And, that's why it's black. This stuff is the real black gold, and the best product you
can put into your garden. Better than fertilizer. Humus can hold up to 90% of
its own weight in moisture. That means you don't
have to water as much, and your plants have access to
water more when it needs it. Humus is high in nutrients and minerals that are essential for plant growth, such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and more. Overall, humus improves
the soil structure, and will last a very long
time, up to 100 years. Yes, that's right, that's what they say, up to 100 years in your garden beds, not that we'll ever know, if you look after those beds. So, maybe, you start when you're 10, and you live to 110, you should be able to keep that. That's if you've composted
early, and well, you know. You get the theory. What about the other layers though? Well, if you left this long enough, you might find you'll get more
of the good stuff down below. Or, you can do what
I've done in my garden. After leaving the pile for several months, you can use the top or
middle layers of woodchip as fill in a garden bed
to break down further, and add value to the bed over time. You could use the top layers, and the middle layers as a
really nice, thick mulch. It helps retain moisture
in the garden beds. It's already been broken down enough, so it won't burn plants roots. But, what it will do, is it will protect the plants roots from extreme cold, or cold, or heat. And also, as that breaks down, that will just add
nutrients into the soil, and add good structure
to the soil on top of it. You can harvest the very bottom layer, and use it as a special
additive to the garden. You know, like a real treat
to top dress around plants, or dig in to the existing soil to immediately improve the garden bed, and thus, help your plants flourish or grow a ton of veggies. Whatever you do, that is
what happens to woodchip when you leave it in a
pile for several months. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, make sure you
dip your thumb in hummus, and give it a big humus thumbs up, and subscribe to the channel
if you haven't already. They'll say, share this video around, because that helps my channel out heaps. There's nothing better than you can do, than share my work around. Thanks a lot for watching, bye for now. I've got heaps more work to do. (brushing)
