There is a park in North Seattle where the public load up free wood chips whenever there is some there.They are probably chipped up from fallen trees and overgrowth and are contained in a three sided cement block bin.
I got a couple yards and laid the chips all around my backyard area,several inches thick.That Fall multiple varieties of fungi protruded out of the chips.So,in this experience,the mycelium was with the chips,waiting for the right conditions to flourish.I can lift up a layer and see the mat of growth,like a web.Iāve read that unless the topsoil has been disturbed,such as when building a new house or a road,the stuff is there interacting with plants. Brady
Drew,
According to Wikipedia, the source of the listeria in the cantaloupe poisoning was related exclusively to dirty equipment. It is speculated a dump truck used to deliver cull melons to a cattle farm brought the listeria back.
āFDA investigation
An investigation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that the contaminated cantaloupe harvest contained four separate Listeria monocytogenes strains, which the governmental agency found to be āunusualā, but was still trying to determine the reason.[19]
On October 20, it was reported that the FDA officials had found
listeria on dirty, corroded equipment used by Jensen Farms, which had
been bought used and was previously utilized for potato farming. It was
stated by the government that the āequipmentās past use may have played a
role in the contaminationā.[20]
Water contaminated with listeria was also found on the floor of the
packing plant and it was determined that the workers moving around the
plant had spread it, as the contaminated water was also found on the
cantaloupe conveyor belt.
It was noted by officials that Jensen Farms had āpassed a food safety
audit by an outside contractorā six days before the outbreak.[21]
The method of how the listeria bacteria first came to be in the plant
remains unknown, as the soil on the farm was determined to be clear of
the bacteria. It is suspected, however, that a ādump truck used to take
culled melons to a cattle farmā¦could have brought bacteria to the
facilityā.[21][22]
Furthermore, Bacteria growth may have been caused by condensation
stemming from the lack of a pre-cooling step to remove field heat from
the cantaloupe before cold storage.[23][24]ā
David,
I actually tried this last fall. Morel mushrooms have a propensity to grow in various fruit orchards. I saw a pic on the internet of some guy who inoculated a plum orchard with morel mushrooms. He basically crushed up a few morels and mixed it in a 5 gal. bucket of water. Then he strained that water and put it into a pump up sprayer, then sprayed the inoculate under the trees. He showed a pic of the morels coming up, and they were everywhere under the trees where he inoculated.
I ordered a morel inoculation kit last fall off the internet. I didnāt use it to inoculate the whole orchard, rather just a few spots I prepared. Morels like wood ash, so I took the ashes from a bunch of brush I burned, mixed then with wood chips and inoculated that. If I get some morels to come up, I plan to try to inoculate the whole orchard.
Iām not sure what to think of all of the disease discussion. Maybe that needs to be a new topic. If someone wants to know whether they can catch a disease from their mulch, a better title might be āCan you catch disease from your mulch?ā or something.
What about mushroom soil for mulch? Or cracker dust which Iām thinking about using since it has calcium in it.
Sounds like a great idea. You have inspired me to try an inoculation kit. Double yields from the same ground is a good thing.
David,
That was my thought. My understanding is that morels are hard to cultivate, but I was inspired by the photo I saw of them coming up everywhere in a plum orchard.
Here many people pick wild morels. There is an older lady that lives next door to my grandmother. She rinses her morels in fresh water and tosses the water out in the yard. She has lived there for over fourty years and has morels that grow all over her yard. My grandmother has no morels in her yard.
An old mushroom hunter claimed that morel ground up in a blender and seasoned with a little honey and added water made a good starter for morel around the feet of fruit & nut trees.
His advise of growing ginseng around the ankles of grape and fruit trees works for meā¦
Things Iāve learned:
-
Mulch can be nasty
-
A lot of mulch is made from ground / shredded pallets
-
Pallets are definitely nasty
-
The Honey Badger is the nastiest of all
Hah, appleseed you are funny. But, my mulch is NOT from pallets. It is from our tree services, or from cedar or fir. And, we have to mulch here, no way around it unless you have a gazillion dollars for water. And, now that our illustrious governor has declared a mandatory 25% reduction in water use for our state, being that we have the worst drought on record for between 500 and 1,000 years, in order to keep my trees alive, mulch is mandatory. Just no Honey badgers allowed.
IMO Hoosier brings up a good point. Iāve spent several thousand dollars spreading mulch on my orchard.
Iām constantly forced to evaluate whether wood chip mulch is worth the cost/effort.
Mulch is worth the effort/cost in my opinion because it provides not only fertilizer value but it improves the tilth of the soil, and eliminates weed competition. This is a pretty big deal in my area where we get lots of rainfall to promote weed growth.
Iāve seen examples in my own orchard where peach trees donāt receive enough N and grow short puny shoots which canāt support fruit because of too few leaves.
For me, itās a tradeoff b/t mulch vs more chemical fertilizer and herbicides for weed control. In addition, in dry summers, mulch is really a form of irrigation (thereās really little difference b/t conserving ground moisture vs. adding it.)
So far its worth it for me to receive wood chips (from tree services). I give the folks free fruit in season (or free sodas out of season) for the chips. The tree trimmers seem appreciative that Iām grateful for the chips. Most places charge them to dump around here.
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Olpea, I have to tell you the funniest story. Only a gardener would find the humor in this, and you being from the Midwest will especially get a chuckle out of this:
My husband and I found out we had to take a job transfer from S. California to Indiana. Born & raised in S. California. When we flew out there to look at properties, it was May. As our realtor was driving us around (between rainstorms, it rained like every other day), I kept seeing all these bags of mulch stocked EVERYWHERE. At nurseries, big box stores, even stacked in huge stacks at gas stations. Crazy, Iāve never seen so much mulch! Iām thinking to myself, āWhat the heck?!? It rains here like almost every day. And not just rain, but torrential downpours. What is the deal with all this mulch, I donāt get it!?!ā So, we move out there in July, and Iām thinking why mulch? It rains every time you blink your eyes for goodnessā sake. So, I donāt mulch. Itās 5 acres, it would have been a LOT of mulching, why mulch it rains like Noahās Ark is coming out here. Well. By August, you can just imagine how tall the weeds were. I didnāt realize that folks mulched for weed control, not just for water conservation. Took me 3 years and a LOT of mulching to get rid of all the bloody weeds from that one non-mulched summer. 
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Patty,
Thanks for sharing that story. 
Many years ago I read the article (linked below) by Richard Marini. At the time it really didnāt resonate with me because I didnāt have the experience to connect with it. A few days ago a friend emailed this article to me. As I read it again I realized how much this guy knows about the nuances of raising peaches.
The article is specific to east coast outside climate, so it doesnāt apply to every type of peach culture, but I find it remarkable applicable to the Midwest.
Note the second sentence of the article says, " However, pruning is not a substitute for other orchard practices such as fertilization, irrigation, and pest control."
That sentence sums up so much. So much failure with outdoor peaches in the Midwest comes from lacking one or more of those four key elements-proper pruning, fertilization, irrigation, and pest control.
Mulching takes care of two of those key elements and part of a third (i.e. fertilization, irrigation and some pest control- i.e. weeds).
I highly recommend the article to anyone in the East or similar climate who wants to grow high quality peaches. I donāt agree with every aspect of the article (e.g. thinning strategy) but again I note most of the failure people (including myself) have experienced in my climate is due to lacking one of the four key elements listed above, and/or poor water drainage.
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Olpea, Iām slowly wading through that article tonight. Thank you for the link.
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Everybodyās situation is different. I have a lot of leaves around here. After watching a few videos I have learned that they are as good as gold for plants. They are rich in trace minerals Trees pull nutrients from far below the surface and bring them to their leaves. The trees concentrate trace elements in their leaves. Anyway I clean an area under a tree, fertilize with organics like Tree-Tone. Put a layer of leaves over the fertilizer. Now I have green and brown. I also shred the leaves. I put a thin layer of compost over the leaves to hold in place. The trees are fed, the weeds cannot take hold. If I had a orchard full of trees I could not do this. Having just 9-14 trees at each of my homes makeās it easier. Each spring I remove the soil around the base and use elsewhere, and start the process again. An alternative to fertilizer is coffee grounds. It provides enough nitrogen to break down the leaves. And youāre not over fertilizing the trees.
In garden beds I use cardboard with leaves over top, then compost every fall. No weed germination in the spring and the bed is ready to be planted out. Earth worms galore using this method.
The art of growing fruit is the choreography of sustaining moderate vigor in ones trees. Not too hot, not too coldā¦ Iāve seen many a runted peach tree left to fend for itself against the ravages of weed competition and drought.
Iāve been pruning hundreds of peach trees at various sites during the last couple of weeks, having waited impatiently for extreme winter temps to recede. It is interesting how varied is the vigor of peach trees under a certain amount of my management but in different soils, some irrigated, some not. some mulched, etc.
The excessive vigor of my own peach trees is rare in trees I manage. Only at one other site, where copious amounts of mulch were applied for several years, is this a problem.
It is much more common at these sites for vigor to be insufficient, where at least part of the trees arenāt sending out enough annual wood. At those sites I will advocate for a 4" thick layer of arborists chips spread in 6ā diameter circles around the trees pulled away from the trunks. I will also hit them with a coated urea that will release nitorgen through June- worked slightly into the soil under the mulch if I get there before the mulch does. Otherwise I will stir it into the mulch and risk a higher lever of volitilization. .
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