Composting wood chips from tree service
gtippitt
13 years ago
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Kimmsr
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agogtippitt
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Wood chips for composting
Comments (8)You're going to love the pile of wood chips, from the tree service, but only for awhile. It does compost out and go away, over time. But it's an excellent addition to the soil, wherever you put it. Spread it around, like in flower beds, decorative path areas, and along borders. Decorative paths means that bare lawn path/patch that goes STRAIGHT to the back gate from the back porch: you could sod that stretch, and within two months, it would be bare again, as there's just too much traffic. Now, with the addition of about three to four inches of wood chips along it's length, it's a decorative path. And border areas: got a flower bed that forms an "L" and it's hard to get the mower into the crook of the L to mow? Fill the crook of the L with wood chips, spreading outward to form an easily-mowed drive-by with the mower. Looks great, mows great. I get a load of chips every year (and they're still free, as the tree service has to get rid of a load a day, somewhere, don't they? But I have had to wait up to two weeks, until they're cutting in my area. They're not going to drive across town to deliver a free load) but I have the piles put on the back property line, out of the way, and almost out of sight. Four piles, each getting smaller, through decomposition/self-composting. Because they're going to sit there for four years. And the heights of the piles are just about four feet tall, the first year, three feet the second year, two feet the third year, and only a one foot tall pile of the richest, most textured compost that fourth season: that pile doesn't last long: what I don't use my neighbors take, a bucket or wheelbarrow at a time. And that's the (empty) spot where this year's pile will get dumped, in July (when the soil is hard, from the heat. No wheel ruts from the truck). The first year, sitting there, the greens will go away (rot. I'm sorry, I should have said 'naturally decompose'). Those bits of leaf, and the evergreen needles. Gone. They don't last long, but when you're spreading a fresh load (you said yours was dumped in front of, rather than alongside, the garage?) you'll see them. Pile the chips rather high, because they'll shrink down rather quickly, the first year. And then you'll have just blonde/brown chips, uniform in appearance, looking great, but they're still going away, gradually. If you're in the city, or a subdivision, without a large enough lot for rotating piles, you'll probably want a load of chips about every three years. If you've got the big enough lot, with an out of the way spot, you'll love a pile every year....See MoreChipped Branch Wood in Compost?
Comments (10)If you are chipping up very small branches they might work o.k. in a compost pile. I do happen to like wood chips as mulch more than as a compost ingredient although my very old wood chip piles look a lot like compost at this point and volunteer plants do sprout in those piles. One thing to consider is how much time you want to surrender to improving soil and with what methods. Compost and manure would probably get you there quicker than with decaying wood. The areas where I have had wood rotting for years have very rich soil but it took a while to get that way. Of course, it also matters what you are growing and where in the world you are growing it. For instance, a high production vegetable garden has different needs than a perennial flower garden. I am also attaching a link to an article about using ramial chipped wood for soil improvement. Here is a link that might be useful: Ramial Chipped Wood Article...See MoreWood chips in compost and soil
Comments (20)At my last house I used wood chips on the paths between the rows of the garden. Fearing the wood chips and soil would get horribly mixed together, plus the dreaded nitrogen stealing, I put barriers such as bricks and boards between the wood chip paths and the garden rows. The next year I applied more wood chips. The third year I was going to do that again, but instead I wound up pushing around the top layer of wood chips and scooping up the LOVELY fluffy black rich soil that the underlying wood chips had become, and putting that on top of the garden rows. Then I put fresh wood chips down on the paths. I tried to mulch around my current raised beds with wood chips over cardboard, but it always rots fast and weeds grow in it. So recently I just go with cardboard, as the wood chips make it rot faster. My wood chips always seem to rot pretty fast, maybe because it rains a lot here so they are soggy a lot? I put shredded branches into my compost because we get them from our chipper-shredder and have copious amounts of green that need some brown to balance it. I do use leaves mostly, but I like to use whatever I have and the branches are from my own property and organic, and the leaves I take from other people. Marcia...See MoreMulch: wood chips or ... this compost-like stuff I have?
Comments (7)I'm just surprised you talked him into giving it to you it if was supposed to be reserved for the parks and recreation board. Where you use it depends on how you use it. If you are going to put it directly on top of the ground, then yes, I think stuff will sprout in it. The only way to avoid that would be to put down a layer of something between the ground and the soil/mulch mix. That "something" could be newspapers laid 12-20 pages thick, cardboard, or woven (not perforated) landscape cloth fabric. That layer will keep anything that sprouts in the soil/compost mix from rooting down into the soil underneath up to a point, but you'll still have to pull up whatever sprouts because eventually the roots can work their way down through the newspaper, cardboard or woven cloth landscape fabric. Mulch in and of itself, of course, never means that you'll never have weeds--just that much of the weed activity is suppressed, weeds that sprout in the mulch are easier to pull than those that are in the ground, the ground is kept cooler and the bed has a more finished look. Mulching never stops either. The mulch breaks down and continually replenishes the soil so you keep having to add mulch on top of old mulch. I add mulch to one garden bed or another almost every week during the growing season. I'd go ahead and use the stuff I picked up as mulch immediately because, if you don't, then you run the risk that rain and wind are going to start blowing/washing away the soil in the soil/mulch mix. Wherever you use it, it will keep weeds down somewhat but weeds eventually will sprout and, at that point, you can pull them up before they get big and then go back and get plain wood chips to lay on top of the wood/soil mix. I hope your husband can just relax and tolerate the piles for a while. Creating a nice landscape takes time and all those piles that might seem a little unsightly now are an investment in your yard's future beauty. That's why I call my husband long-suffering...because he tolerates my piles and my experiments and, whenever there is a crisis, he drops what he is doing to shoot a venomous snake, rescue a guinea from the talons of a hawk, cover up tomato plants in the face of an impending frost, repair a fence that a deer has crashed into (but not sailed over!), etc. Sometimes I think non-gardening spouses have to be the most patient people on earth. Of course, he gets to be the "good guy" too, carrying tons of excess produce to work to share with his co-workers, which makes him a "hero" in their eyes. Dawn...See Moretoffee1
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCaptTurbo
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13 years agolast modified: 9 years agogtippitt
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoCaptTurbo
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agolcpw_gw
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agotoffee1
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agogtippitt
13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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