Hey folks,

I live in the Phoenix, AZ area and have a raised garden bed in which I grow peppers. This spring, I tried adding a layer of wood chips to the bed for the first time. The primary goal of this was to stop the neighborhood cats from using the bed as a litterbox (it worked!), but a nice side effect was that they helped to keep the soil cool and moist.

Anyhow, the spring gardening season is pretty much at an end here (at least for peppers), so I spent this morning pulling up my plants. I also tried to remove as many of the wood chips as possible. This was partly because they had gotten pushed deeper into the soil throughout the season due to watering, and partly because I was concerned that as they decay, they might affect pH balance and/or nutrient levels.

I think I got most of them removed, but it's hard to tell for sure as the original soil mix I used also had some wood chips in it. How concerned do I need to be about what remains? Will their decay (slow as it is in this very dry climate) affect soil quality? Is there anything I should add to the bed (other than my usual fertilizer) before transplanting the fall crop in a couple of months?

Thanks all!