Compost the chips in a pile somewhere - don't work them into your soil. Wood locks up nitrogen as it decomposes. Also encourages termites.

Aeration is always good.

Dennis

There's barely enough to rake into the hole after a stump grinding.

If you have the whole tree shredded and left, you will have a smallish pile of woodchips for mulch and compost.

Yeah, it won't amount to all that much. And being stump grindings, it will have a fairly large percentage of soil. Either live with it exactly as is, and expect some good mushroom growth for a few years, or rake up, compost, and then use as soil amendment. Good stuff, the N tie-up is a temporary thing.

+oM

You can use it as a surface mulch and it will not deplete N that way. So for winter, over your other compost and leaf layers, or in paths, perennial beds, etc.

Had the same problem with tree roots sucking clay soil dry. I feel your pain.

I agree that it is not enough to worry about. And stump grindings tend to be very small particles as well - almost sawdust - so the aeration benefits are minimal. Just work them into the soil. If you have N concerns, just offset with blood meal or alfalfa. Works for larger wood chips as well.

Wow!!! You guys are good. You've supplied me with quick and knowledgeable responses. Thank you so much!

I don't usually frequent the soil forum. But I am glad that I did!

It will be fine to add them, but it won't really fix up your soil completely, like with adding a lot of compost. But, it won't hurt anything, never have any nitrogen tie up problems myself. I use microbark as a ground cover. But, after three years the areas still have poor soil unless added compost.

it won't fix the soil because what really fluffs it is earthworm food buried. But it will grow a bunch of fungi, and those, too, fluff it some. Concur with garden gal, if you start seeing yellow plants, you can add any sort of high N material until the plants green up. High N spread into a wood chip/soil mixture tends to persist as it is absorbed into the chips/sawdust and then released slowly over one year or two.

I had a tree ground up several years ago. It was a HUGE stump, naturally right smack dab in the middle of my front yard. Left quite a lot of sawdust, but the stump-grinder assured me that I would have no trouble growing grass in that spot. He fibbed.

So I have an N problem? I have fungi of a colorful sort growing there, and sometimes I can get grass to grow for a short period of time. Then it dies.

Since we're going into winter soon, should I apply some blood meal or alfalfa pellets now, then try my grass again in the spring?

Depends. If the soil has ample amounts of organic matter now and an active Soil Food Web mixing in a high carbon source of material might have little to no adverse affect. However, if the soil lacks adequate amounts of organic matter and an active Soil Food Web, mixing a source of high carbon into the soil can result in the soil bacteria getting busy digesting that carbon and temporarily causing most of the available Nitrogen to be tied up. Once that carbon is digested, or mostly so, that N will be once again available to the plants.

I have used fresh wood chips or sawdust without problems. I have established beds and can't dig anything in. I add the fresh wood and spread Plantone over it. My plants haven't suffered. I also throw coffee around some shrubs and flowers.

I live in Florida and the soil is sand. I add whatever I can get to the beds. I can't dig anything in. Everything goes on the surface.

Jane

Digging wood chips, a high Carbon and low Nitrogen material, in to soil can create problems because the Soil Food Web will utilize most of the available soil Nitrogen to digest those wood chips. Putting those same wood chips on the soil will not tie up the Soil Food Web who will not utilize most of the available N to digest them, although they will work on the wood chips slowly, over time. That is why gardeners see their wood chip mulches, or other mulch material, "disappear" over time, the soil critters digest them.