[Tania]

Yesterday I checked all the wood chips piles. We have four types - all started at about the same time, in mid July

1. wood chips + coffee grinds
2. wood chips + coffee grinds + kitchen waste
3. Wood chips (dry, we had a dry summer and little rain until now)
4. wood chips (wet - watered by hand)

The results so far:

There is not much difference between #1,2 and 4. They all look very rich dark brown, almost fully broken down. Smell delicious too! Ready to go into the beds before winter. I think they'll break down completely before spring. The only difference was in the process of decomposition - #1 and 2 generated quite a bit of heat over 4-6 weeks period. #4 stayed relatively cool. There are more mycorrhizal threads in #4. Probably because we never turned it, so they developed without being disturbed.

I read that a preferable way of breaking down wood chips is the cool decomposition by fungi. Hot decomposition releases nutrients into the air, so there is some nutrient loss occurs. This does not happen in the cool pile.

#3 (dry) stayed pretty much intact, except a very thin layer that got some rain naturally. The dry mass inside has some blue mould, which I think is bad.

All wet wood chips piles grow mushrooms. This is great, as it means fungi continue to work and break it down.

I do notice a great difference between conifer wood chips and deciduous wood decomposition. Deciduous wood chips break down faster and better, and they have lots of mycorrhizal threads. The next best is fir with lots of needles.