The Problem With Using Wood Chips As A Mulch Layer...

I use straw for the beds rice holes for the pots

Indoor i dont like cover crops.

i use raw hessian cloth similar to worm blankets its cheap allows airflow keeps top moist and zero gnats in living soil earth box

Man the rally pollys he talks about can become a MAJOR problem if not kept in check.
My plants werent growing very much after transplanting into my beds so i removed my mulch layer to see whats up and the soil surface was alive with movement of tens of thousands of these insects.

Safe to say i had to bin my soil and start again. I will not be adding them into my living soil system ever again

Can I use pine wood chips?

Woodchips are fine to use as a mulch; the keyword is mulch. Don't mix them into the soil. They are also safer than other mulches, such as hay or straw, because of potential Aminopyralid contamination.

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My concern with using woodchips as mulch is that where I did it, the woodchips have partially broken down and formed an impenetrable mat. I put some new plants in this morning and it was really hard to get through the layer of woodchips. I had to really smash through it with my little hand spade. I've noticed a lot of mushrooms popping up in the woodchips occasionally. Perhaps it's just held together by really tough mycelium. The soil was mostly moist beneath it, so perhaps this is ok. I was just expecting it to still be loose and easy to clear a spot to put a plant in. Either way, I'm very pleased with the woodchips mulch. All the trees I've used it around seem a lot healthier than the ones I didn't. And it does a good job of keeping weeds out. Except the grass grows in from the edges. But it pulls out relatively easily because the soil is soft underneath the mulch. I don't know about other places, but where I live in a very hot arid part of outback Australia, I don't think I could grow a garden without using the woodchips. It definitely does more good than bad here. I'm just curious about why the mulch has formed a solid layer and if I should just leave it or if I need to break it up. I do regularly rake the mulch back directly around trees before applying fertilizer and it stays loose there. But the parts I don't rake are like a thick mat.

Hi, i have tons of roly polys bugs, they are millions, How can I control the population?