Sawdust impact on soil

treebucker · February 28, 2007, 09:57:30 PM

Dan_Shade I'll cover you on this one...

Engineer - there's a difference between bull6!@#%^&* smiley_bull_stomp and useless bull6!@#%^&*. smiley_smelly_skunk

BTW Dan green leaves are high in nitrogen but dry leaves are not much better than sawdust.

Dan_Shade · February 28, 2007, 11:12:29 PM

ok, that's what I figured, I have lots of dried leaves, and lots of sawdust!

you're right, between DC, annapolis, and baltimore..... no wonder the chesapeake bay is so polluted!

tim1234 · March 01, 2007, 08:13:03 PM

Remember, most of the good stuff in Compost comes from the minerals stored in the leaves used for the carbon material. Trees roots reach way down into the ground and pull up lots of great stuff. All those minerals get stored in the leaves and are released back to the top soil when the leaves naturally compost down in the forest. Composting for your garden is just an imitation of nature. There really isn't that much mineral content in wood including sawdust. If you compost with sawdust you will get a inferior compost compared to composting with leaves (sorry guys). The compost will improve soil texture, but won't bring a lot of nutirents which is on of the main reasons people compost.

Most of the time manure is already mixed with straw from the animals stalls and is already a premixed compost pile from the get go. Mixing in more carbon will just slow the process.

I doubt you can compost down sawdust in a single season. If you do use the mixuture before it has completely composted down you will get into the same issue I mentioned in my previous post - a barren garden. But if you have the sawdust and a lot of time, go for it!!!

Tim

Dan_Shade · March 01, 2007, 08:42:30 PM

While I know it's not the best thing, having something to do with the sawdust is all I'm really looking for. I certainly don't want to bag it and put it into the landfill.... i'm sure i'm not alone.

i keep meaning to start trying to collect the coffee grounds at work, but I never think of it at the right time.

tim1234 · March 01, 2007, 08:48:09 PM

Put a drywall bucket with a 13 gallon trash bag as a liner next to the coffe pot. Then put up a sign asking people to put the grounds in the bucket. they catch on after a while. I would get 15 gallons of grounds a week. Coffee is a great source of nitrogen and if you have enough of it, because it is ground up small would be a great addition to a sawdust pile. You just need a pile of coffee grounds the size of your sawdust pile!!!

Tim