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- #211
Interesting idea. But wood is free, wood chips are not.
Yes, I have lots of free wood like fallen trees, etc... So, that is what I would use as well. But you might be able to get your wood chips for free as well.
It took me awhile, but I found that I could get all the free wood chips I could ever want or use at our local county landfill. They are just natural wood chips dumped off by arborists to get rid of them.
It only takes me about 15-20 minutes with a good 12-tine fork to fill up my small 4X8 foot 1-foot-high wall utility trailer. And I don't even break a sweat doing it. It's not too hard even for an old guy like me.
That's a great option if there is anyone in your area that participates in the program. I know the arborists where I live have to pay a dumping fee at the landfill to get rid of their woodchips. So you would think it would be worth their time to do a chip drop at your place if they are in your area.
The only negative thing I have heard is that you might get a lot more woodchips than you wanted. Some of those arborists have big truck beds that hold a whole lot of wood chips. If they dump their load, they want it all dumped at once.
I signed up for Chip Drop years ago when I first learned about it. But I live out in the country and there was nobody locally in the program. When I found out I could get all the free wood chips I wanted at the county landfill, I took my name of the Chip Drop list and just fill up my trailer with a load from the landfill when I need it.
I certainly would not advocate for buying bags of mulch (wood chips) at the big box stores for a hügelkultur raised bed. I think that would be more expensive than buying bags of soil!