Waste Products - Sawdust and Flitches and slabs

[mike_belben]

Hes gonna need a boatload of grass clippings and manure to break all that carbon down. 

[rjwoelk]

Mike i had about 1500 cubic ft of saw chips from the firewood processor. Mixed in 20+ cord of manure about the same in sod. Cooked it for 3 months. Smells like good garden soil.

[69bronco]

Been using sawdust and chips in the garden for years. As long as you don't bury your plants in green stuff it works great, I use the fresh for between the rows and walkways. After it sits for the season it gets tilled in and cover cropped.

[mike_belben]

 woodchips are real handy in a garden. I cover all my soil to prevent weeds and keep the sun from taking moisture out of the dirt. works great for that.  

It also promotes upward root growth instead of downward. I put chips all around the stem of my tomato plants and obviously water there.  In a short time ill see the fine white root hairs coming up to the surface between the air spaces in the chip bed. Every few weeks i put a few handfulls of fresh compost around each stem, cap it in chips again and soak it down to wash the compost nutrients down into the mix.  I tend to see an immediate boost in the plants and roots at the surface again a week later.  My compost has quite a bit of bloodmeal and the chips dissolve quickly around the plant base because of it, the nitrogen at work on the carbon.


I use hardwood milling sawdust as the primary carbon in hot compost batches all summer.  Grass, pokeweed and table scraps are the other component.  Takes about 3 weeks to get this.  Doesnt pay me any money directly but we eat good.

[btulloh]

Getting that in 3 weeks is some pretty good cookin'.  Looks good.  How big are your piles? What kind of temps are you getting in the pile?  Is it hot enough to render poke berries harmless or are you just getting ahead of the berries?

[Crusarius]

I have friends with horses. I keep contemplating clearing a section of woods so I can make a long spot to dump the manure and then dump sawdust on it and keep flipping it throughout the year. Then sell very fertile soil in the spring.

Really wonder how much work vs return there would be on it. at a minimum it be real nice to replace the clay in my yard with good stuff. That grass will grow in and water will shed.

[mike_belben]

That particular handful was screened out of a batch at 12 or 13 days but is likely only sawdust that has turned. Its great for seed starting. The bigger stalky greens just never come thru the 1" screen until theyre broken down.  I carry that last clumpy blob over to innoculate the next batch faster.

I turn almost daily in sunny weather to get batches made fast.  Im on sandy clay that cant be used so i can only expand as quick as i can make dirt.  Temps like 135-150F and probably not sterilizing any seeds but with 2" mulch cap it never matters, i have no weed issues at all. Late blight on cucurbits was a different story last season.









I lasagna layer green and brown in the box for about a week then flip the pile from left bay to right bay.  I put a screen over a tote on the right to get fine starter soil out of the mix as needed.  The size is a little small for really high temps.