The best tools for Back to Eden gardening

changed

changed

Preferred pronouns: dude/bro
I don't know bout ya'all, but I am itching to start gardening again. I was out in the garden today adding wood chips as mulch and I got the idea to share pictures of tools that I have found out through trial and error to be the best for working with a Back to Eden garden. One is like a pitchfork, but it has more tines. I don't know if it has a special name, but it is the best way to shovel woodchips from pile into the wagon. A shovel just does not allow you to do it as efficiently. The other tool is an arrow shaped hoe. It allows you to make a furrow in the wood chips down to the soil. I also included a pic of my solar lights being charged. I leave them in the cardboard tray I bought them in and when the sun goes down I distribute them around the house like night lights. There is a lot less bumping around in the dark if you have to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
 

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Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
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I've seen your pitchfork thingee called an "apple picker", used for cleaning horse stalls.
 
R

ReneeT

Veteran Member
Manure or stall fork. I can load the bed of a Dakota pick up full of wood chips in 20 minutes with one of those critters - and I'm not in good shape. Handy, they are!
 
R

Rabbit

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I'm going on my sixth year of gardening with this method and I love it. This is the first winter that I did not add another layer of new chips. The soil looks very rich but weeds might be more of an issue this year. Probably won't be too bad but more than in the past.

I can't wait to get the Spring garden going. I've been looking at garden videos on YouTube all evening.

That manure fork looks like it will get the job done. I've been using a regular garden fork and it works well also.
 
M

meandk0610

Veteran Member
Just wondering, slight drift, would wood chips from bedding work or does it have to be the thicker wood chips like playground mulch?
 
Freeholder

Freeholder

This too shall pass.
I'd really like to do it, but we don't have much in the way of hardwoods here. We have juniper (which won't work, as far as I know) and pine, which might work but not nearly as well as hardwoods. There are a few cottonwoods, aspen, and willow, but it would be really hard to get chips of any of those as they aren't normally cut. There's sagebrush, too, but even if I had a chipper, I don't think it would be good to use.

I do use hugulkultur (sp) as much as I can.

Kathleen
 
Illini Warrior

Illini Warrior

Illini Warrior
sad thing is that you'll see a handful of forks on farm sales .... the people that buy them just plan to use them as decoration .... something like the muck fork gets buried in the flower garden to rust away with morning glories crawling up it .... sad end to a great old US made tool ....
 
naturallysweet

naturallysweet

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Hoe, shovel, wheelbarrow, rake. And lots and lots of mulch.

I have super worms in my small personal garden that are capable of turning feet worth of organic material into soil every year. So I'm constantly dumping stuff out there.
 
changed

changed

Preferred pronouns: dude/bro
Illini Warrior said:
sad thing is that you'll see a handful of forks on farm sales .... the people that buy them just plan to use them as decoration .... something like the muck fork gets buried in the flower garden to rust away with morning glories crawling up it .... sad end to a great old US made tool ....
Click to expand...

And the tools you buy nowdays fall apart in a couple of years.
 
Illini Warrior

Illini Warrior

Illini Warrior
changed said:
And the tools you buy nowdays fall apart in a couple of years.
Click to expand...


I don't buy any garden tools new anymore .... rather find a well used and old US made steel one .... only exception is when I find the newer fiberglass handled tools - they have their own advantages ......
 
P

PaulC

Contributing Member
I have 1/4 acre as BTEgarden, and 16 fruit trees. All covered with wood chips. Have been at it for 2 yrs now, and absolutely love it.
 
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PaulC

Contributing Member
You sure can. I have covered all of my raised beds with 8-10 in. wood chip mulch. It works great.
 
packyderms_wife

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
PaulC said:
You sure can. I have covered all of my raised beds with 8-10 in. wood chip mulch. It works great.
Click to expand...

Good to know! We have woodchips in the bottom of our raised beds so we wouldn't need as much soil to fill them, note that my raised beds are knee high.
 
Cyclonemom

Cyclonemom

Veteran Member
Now that spring is here, anyone willing to share how they got started (did you do newspaper/compost/woodchips/manure like the demo video)? Anyone try it with a "spring" start?

If you have perennials, can you just start piling up woodchips around them, or should they be dug up and replanted?

Also, if anyone has a moment and can post pics, would love to see. We need more garden porn here!!
smileys-flowers-503339.gif
 
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