Organic Be careful with fresh wood chips in the garden

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Be careful with fresh wood chips in the garden
Jessica Walliser
Jessica Walliser | Saturday, April 5, 2008


Questions: I had a large pin oak tree taken down in late fall. After the stump was ground, I was left with a rather large pile of sawdust/chips, etc. Can this be used for mulch and if so, where• I have a rather large garden, 40 feet by 20 feet, where I grow a multitude of crops with excellent success. I would imagine these chips, etc., would be acidic. I guess I can use them around my hemlocks and "rhodies" planted around my house. I was thinking of using this mulch on the outside perimeter of my garden. Would this be OK, or would the resultant leaching into the soil ruin my garden?

Answer: The good news is that you can use those new wood chips. The bad news is that I'm going to be pretty specific about where you can use them safely. There are a number of reasons why you don't want to use those fresh wood chips in the vegetable or flower garden.

First, because they are actively decomposing, they are generating heat. Using large quantities of these fresh chips can burn plant foliage. Secondly, there may be a resulting soil pH change after using these chips depending on how many you add. Fresh wood leachates can have a pH as low as 4, which is quite acidic and could potentially result in undesirable soil conditions. This pH change usually only affects the soil down to a few inches, so it is more harmful to shallow-rooted plants like herbaceous perennials, annuals and vegetables; it isn't so much of a factor for deeper-rooted trees and shrubs. Thirdly, and most importantly in my mind, fresh wood chips are very high in carbon, and in order for them to fully decompose, nitrogen needs to be involved. This necessary nitrogen is pulled from the underlying soil. Eventually, that nitrogen will be returned to the ground when the chips are completely broken down, but in the meantime, you are stealing this essential nutrient from your plants.

That being said, there are a few places where it is safe to use fresh wood chips. The compost pile is a great place to put them to work. Because they are so high in carbon, you'll need to mix them with half as much grass clippings and/or manure by volume. Toss in a cup of lime for every four wheelbarrows of wood chips to help neutralize the pH. Let the pile compost for a year or two (turn the pile whenever you can -- ideally once or twice a month). The resulting product can be used anywhere in the garden and makes a beautiful soil amendment. It also is safe to use a few inches of fresh wood chips around evergreens and other acid loving plants like rhododendrons, azaleas and boxwoods. Keep the chips a good three or four inches away from the trunk of the plants to ensure the heat of decomposition doesn't harm the bark.

Horticulturist Jessica Walliser, co-author of the books "Grow Organic" and "A Gardener's Journal," can be heard from 7-9 a.m. Sundays on KDKA Radio's "The Organic Gardeners." You can also find her teaching at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, where she has been a faculty member for more than 12 years.




https://triblive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/lifestyles/homegarden/s_560706.html
 
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How to Compost Wood Chips Fast
Composting with Nature
Frugal Homesteading
Gardening
July 9, 2018 Krystal


If you find yourself with a lot of wood chips to get rid of, you can always compost them.

Composting wood chips allows you to turn excess wood from your property into a rich, nutritious,

organic growing medium for your gardens.

Why throw all of that perfectly good money away, rather than having them hauled off or dumping them into the woods?!

If you have a high quality compost accelerator like Urea on hand (or intend to obtain some), which will help to improve the decomposition rate of your wood chips, you will work through your pile far more quickly. This is not a must-have, but it can save your back a bit of labor.



How to Compost Wood Chips Fast

In average conditions, wood chips can take several years to fully decompose.

This can greatly vary depending on how the compost pile is built and maintained, what is in the compost pile, what time of year the compost pile is started, what type of wood is used, and how large the chips are.

As you can see, there are many variables that will affect the time that it takes to decompose your wood chips.

By ensuring that you provide optimum conditions for decomposition (small chips, wood species that aren’t rot resistant, balancing nitrogen & carbon, etc), and by giving fungi a hospitable place to call home, your wood chips will compost much more quickly.

What Size Wood Chips Decompose the Fastest?

If you want your wood chips to decompose as quick as possible, make sure that the chips are as small as you can get them.




Smaller chips from tiny branches and overgrown brush around the property will decompose much faster.

However, very large wood chips that come from your local power company could be over 8 inches in length and take far longer.

Instead of composting the largest chunks of wood, try using them for kindling your fireplace or in a bonfire.

Balancing Nitrogen and Carbon (Greens and Browns) for the Fastest Wood Chip Compost

If you want to learn how to compost wood chips fast, you must learn how to balance the greens and browns in a compost pile.

The browns are carbon-rich organic materials, such as wood, brown leaves, paper, cardboard, hay, straw, and more. The greens are nitrogen-rich materials, such as green foliage, urine, grass clippings, and manure.

If your compost pile is composed of nothing but wood chips, it will break down very slowly.

To speed up the process, add lots of green material to the compost pile to “heat things up.”




The hotter a compost pile gets, the more quickly the items within will break down.

If you plan to mow your yard, or if you need to clean out the chicken coop or rabbit hutches, it would be an excellent idea to add the clippings and manure to the wood chips in a compost pile.

Make sure that everything is well mixed and evenly dispersed for the best results while composting.

how to compost wood chips fast
When to Start a Wood Chip Compost Pile & How to Speed Up Decomposition

Conditions favorable for decomposition are always warm and wet; this includes your wood pile.

You can begin building your wood chip pile year round, but for the fastest results, arrange to have chips delivered during the late winter or early spring; this will give you 3 to 8 months of warmer weather for the chips to break down.

Build your mound of fresh chips, and keep it moistened. Do not allow it to dry out, or decomposition will slow. Water it just like you would the garden!

If you didn’t balance the pile with “greens”, it is a good idea to apply the Urea we mentioned at the beginning of this post around once per month. You may need to apply it heavily during the first month or two, perhaps a handful or two.

Apply the urea in a flat area at the top, helping to prevent it from washing down the sides of the pile when it is watered.

Turn your wood chips as often as possible (every two weeks) to help them decompose quickly and more uniformly.



Do Some Woods Take Longer to Compost Than Others?

If there are rot resistant woods in the pile of mulch, try to pick them out; they will not deteriorate quickly, and some such as Cedar may actually thwart the process by deterring beneficial insects that will compost the wood.

These woods are known to be resistant to rot, and may frequently be found in chips that come from local lumber yards or saw mills:

Cedar
Black Locust
Osage Orange
Bald Cypress
Redwood
Oak

If any of these are found in your pile of chips, then you should be aware that these woods will take longer to break down.

Be sure to place the decomposing woodpile in a section of your yard that you won’t mind setting aside for a while.


http://wondrousacreshomestead.website/index.php/2018/07/09/how-to-compost-wood-chips-fast/
 
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Chicken Manure Compost: 4 Steps to Use Your Chickens’ Poop as Garden Fertilizer
By MorningChores Staff

Every homesteader has some type of garden.

They may vary in size and variety but one thing all gardens have in common is that they need fertilizer. Fertilizer can get very expensive if you purchase it.

The more organic, the more expensive.

The great news is that if you own chickens you can have all of the free fertilizer you could ever use. If you don’t own chickens, after this post, you will.

So the common question is how you use chickens manure into fertilizer?

The answer: In just a few simple steps!
1. Locate your wood chips

You begin by locating wood chips.

Depending on the size of your chicken coop and chicken yard (if you keep them in one location), you might be able to use wood chips by the dump truck load. Even if you don’t think you need a whole dump truck load of wood chips, they are usually free so take them!

Wood chips come in handy for many things on the homestead. Click here for some ideas!

Locate a tree trimming service in your area. Since they have to pay to dispose of wood chips, tree trimming businesses are usually very happy to drop them off at your place for free. You don’t have to let them compost.

As soon as they are delivered, start spreading them out in your chickens’ area.

If by some chance you don’t have a tree trimming service in your area, you can always buy mulch by the bags at any local garden center. A lot of times garden centers will deliver mulch by the dump truck load for a small fee as well.

If you have recently cut down some trees and have a wood chipper you could actually make your own mulch as well.
2. Lay the mulch

When spreading, the wood chips be sure to cover everything. They will provide a lot of scratching material for your chickens.

A lot of times there are bugs in them, so it provides food for your chickens as well. It also helps cut down on any chicken odor. Needless to say, your chickens will be ecstatic when you lay wood chips in their area.

You will soon realize that by laying wood chips, you will have more fertilizer than you can use in a season. However, it is best to lay the wood chips in the fall or winter to give the chickens ample of time to work them over.

If you ever feel like you might run low on fertilizer then just add more wood chips to an area and let the chickens work on that area while you are still harvesting fertilizer from another area.
3. Let the chickens do their thing

After laying a thick layer of wood chips in your chickens’ area, let them do their thing with it for a couple of months. By doing their “thing”, I am referring to scratching the dickens’ out of the ground. The chickens will poop while they scratch and this process will form your compost.

You will see when the wood chips are starting to vanish. Your ground will begin to look like really rich dirt and less like a mulched area.

When that happens, it will be time to start fertilizing.

Chicken manure is naturally high in nitrogen. By allowing the chickens to scratch it into compost, it neutralizes it. This is great news for your plants!

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4. Sift the compost

You can make a sifter very easily. All it takes is building a square frame from a few pieces of wood and placing some screen material over it.

You can see more about that in this video:

After you have your sifter built, it is time to start sifting.

Use a shovel and scoop up piles of the dirt your chickens have been working over for you. By sifting through it, you stop any big pieces of mulch or manure that have not been fully broken down from making it into your compost pile.

Shake the sifter back and forth.

I recommend wearing gloves and a mask if possible to help with the sifting process. This will keep any particles from flying in your face.

Gloves make it a little easier to get your hands in there and make the sifting process go a little faster. You will get a very fine, rich looking compost at the end of this process.

Sifter
5. Use it!

Take the compost you sifted out of your chicken area and place it around all of your plants.

It works fantastic for them!

You can also plant in the compost as well. You can use this method of fertilizing as frequently as you would the store-bought fertilizer. You will be amazed at how well your plants will grow from it!
A Second Method: Spreading Fertilizer in Bulk
1. Gather chicken manure

With this method, you have the option of skipping the wood chips.

However, if you are like me and just like the look and the composting benefits of wood chips then you can still use them.

If you use wood chips, it is not necessary to use the sifting process. With this method, the fertilizer will not be placed directly on or around the plants. Therefore, if you have some larger chunks of wood chips or manure, you don’t have to worry about them burning your plants.

If you choose not to use wood chips, then you will just gather the chicken manure. I would recommend saving it when you are cleaning the coop out but also be sure to scrape the ground of any remaining manure that could be of use.

Basically, all you will do is get a wheel barrel and a shovel.

Scoop as far down as the dirt is rich and black. Once you reach dirt that doesn’t look as good, you’ll know to stop. Scoop up the rich dirt and pitch it in the wheel barrel to be distributed.

With this method, if you are using wood chips, I would recommend placing them out in your chicken yard in early spring. This will give the chickens the whole growing season to scratch them into a compost for you.

I like to do this because the more composted they are, the less work the ground has to do over the winter to break everything down.
2. Spread it

With this method, you will spread the manure in bulk. When your last garden is finished for the year, you will take all of the chicken manure you have and spread it over the garden.

If you till your garden, you would go ahead and turn it under after spreading. If you use the no-till method of gardening, then you would add the chicken manure and then place the other composting materials on top of it.

This would allow it to break down and compost over the winter months.

We actually combine both methods of fertilizing in our garden. We do no-till gardening so every year before we place our composting materials on the garden, we always place a layer of chicken litter under it. Then we use chicken manure that has composted to fertilize our plants when they are placed in the garden the following year.

We fertilize about one time per month. I also plant in this compost as well.


https://morningchores.com/chicken-manure/
 
T

tnhillbilly

Senior Member
I use fresh wood chips every year in my Back to Eden garden. I put 2 - 4 inches on top of my garden in January. I add some nitrogen only and let sit till spring. When time comes to plant I scratch me a row with the end of a stick and plant at a depth close to the bottom of the recently spread chips. Been doing it 7 or 8 years. I usually don't till anything. Seems to work pretty good.
 
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It is best to have an area to spread out new chip where it can be left for about 10 months, then move it around the garden. The tannins etc force the worms to have to move out from under fresh chip.



The main thing to remember about the chip is that it is not fertile. When you say mix in chicken shit you are adding the nitrogen and minerals needed for growing vegetables etc. Most trees can get down fast enough in the soil to get the minerals they need but even then the minerals can be lacking plus nitrogen.


Where I live fruit trees etc can be starving to death while Eucalyptus trees are doing well close by.


I buy kiln dried and baked chip for my garden so I can use straight away but I fertilize with chicken shit regularly plus other fertilizer.
 
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