My experience is with wood chips alone [wi/o fert.] and our climate [semi-arid,mediteranian] affects the results. About 8 months ago I took delivery of a dump-truck load of chipped eucalyptus. It has all been distributed in my yard in [1] pathways .. pleasant woodsey look and feel underfoot. In some places it has already composted down to bare earth. [2] deep mulch in non-watered side yard .. mostly to give a neat appearance and control weeds. This material is about 1/2 composted down due to an unusually rainy winter. [3] deep mulch around roses to cut down on water use [we're rationed]working well, so far. [4] used as a brown in my compost pile [no-turn, slow][5] mulch around vegetables and fruit trees. I don't notice appearance of nitrogen loss/deprivation. This mulch seems to 'compost' more quickly than in the unwatered yard and much less quickly than in the pathways. I hope this will give you an idea of how well wood chips will compost. I envy you your chicken flock. No room on a small city lot, which must also accomodate 2 dogs.

Congratulations on your big compost pile. Those tillers work wonders in helping make it, don't they? With a pile that big, you could pile half of it up on the other half, kinda like I have done in the picture that I linked on down in this thread, and start a new pile where you have cleared it out. It will go ahead finishing and breaking down. As mentioned above, if it is to a point where you are satisfied with it, to put it on your garden would allow any leacing to go into the soil where it would be of benefit. I like to till mine in some and usually add it when I mow and mulch knee high greens and add a layer of shredded oak leaves and aged horse manure. I usually turn all that under with my moldboard plow which flops it over upside down with some dirt on top of it. I let that set awhile through a few rains and hopefully freezes before bedding it up to make my rows for next spring. It is hard to make a bad choice with good compost, what ever you do, it will continue to break down and become plant food that the plants can use. Good luck with your choice. Just my .02 Bill P.

I'm just surprised you talked him into giving it to you it if was supposed to be reserved for the parks and recreation board. Where you use it depends on how you use it. If you are going to put it directly on top of the ground, then yes, I think stuff will sprout in it. The only way to avoid that would be to put down a layer of something between the ground and the soil/mulch mix. That "something" could be newspapers laid 12-20 pages thick, cardboard, or woven (not perforated) landscape cloth fabric. That layer will keep anything that sprouts in the soil/compost mix from rooting down into the soil underneath up to a point, but you'll still have to pull up whatever sprouts because eventually the roots can work their way down through the newspaper, cardboard or woven cloth landscape fabric. Mulch in and of itself, of course, never means that you'll never have weeds--just that much of the weed activity is suppressed, weeds that sprout in the mulch are easier to pull than those that are in the ground, the ground is kept cooler and the bed has a more finished look. Mulching never stops either. The mulch breaks down and continually replenishes the soil so you keep having to add mulch on top of old mulch. I add mulch to one garden bed or another almost every week during the growing season. I'd go ahead and use the stuff I picked up as mulch immediately because, if you don't, then you run the risk that rain and wind are going to start blowing/washing away the soil in the soil/mulch mix. Wherever you use it, it will keep weeds down somewhat but weeds eventually will sprout and, at that point, you can pull them up before they get big and then go back and get plain wood chips to lay on top of the wood/soil mix. I hope your husband can just relax and tolerate the piles for a while. Creating a nice landscape takes time and all those piles that might seem a little unsightly now are an investment in your yard's future beauty. That's why I call my husband long-suffering...because he tolerates my piles and my experiments and, whenever there is a crisis, he drops what he is doing to shoot a venomous snake, rescue a guinea from the talons of a hawk, cover up tomato plants in the face of an impending frost, repair a fence that a deer has crashed into (but not sailed over!), etc. Sometimes I think non-gardening spouses have to be the most patient people on earth. Of course, he gets to be the "good guy" too, carrying tons of excess produce to work to share with his co-workers, which makes him a "hero" in their eyes. Dawn

I'm also trying to compost without digging. I have tons of leaves in my yard and all kinds of small twigs mostly broken down already from being on the ground so long. I used to do major composting when I lived on a farm in the 60s. But then we had all kinds of manure and hay available. I also had a large family so all kinds of scraps. I'm doing what the others suggested--buying manure and soil additives from Lowe's, but I'm also saving all egg shells now and cotton lint--haha! Small veggie scraps decompose quite quickly. And of course I'm saving all my coffee grounds. I have a coffee can on the sink for things to put in the compost pile. I just started my compost but I'm excited about it--God knows I NEED dirt like a drunk needs a drink--haha! I have a freind in NH who says everyone she knows uses Pampers as compost fill. You take the plastyic off and chop up the insdes. She says its cheap. I haven;t tried it yet...Good luck with yours and keep us informed..