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sawdust in the garden

Started by yukon cornelius, April 08, 2014, 09:35:13 AM

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yukon cornelius

anyone till their sawdust into a garden? our garden dirt is a little clumpy and id like to break it down. this was a field as of yesterday and I tilled it up 4 times yesterday. it was starting to break up pretty well at the end and the depth was starting to be as deep as I want it. I will till a few more times before planting in it. I have read it may rob nitrogen from the soil yet others sy no problems. we need a good garden this year so I don't anything to set it back. it will be oak and maybe hickory sawdust I would use.
It seems I am a coarse thread bolt in a world of fine threaded nuts!

Making a living with a manual mill can be done!

LittleJohn

I would just make sure you don't mess up the pH or acidity!  Might need to test the soil to see where you are at now and then test a few months after you till sawdust in.  It will be a good science project

thecfarm

It's hard to till a field and than plant. A cover crop should be planted and than tilled in. Really need a year to kill all the grass and weeds. That much I do know. All I know is one year I used some horse manure,with shavings on the garden. I won't do that again. The wood products did not do well in the garden. But you may not have a problem. Got any farmers with cows close? Cow manure would do it some good. Cow manure can be pricey here,that's why I went with the horse stuff and we had horses too.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Magicman

It needs to compost first.  Since it compacts so tightly, it will have to be mixed with leaves, straw, and whatever else.  Fact is that there is not much usefulness for sawdust. 

There are many sawdust piles scattered throughout that are well over 75 years old.  They do not rot.
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coxy

I have had vary good luck with ditch dirt that the town cleans out of them and a little cow crap ;D   and saw dust put a hearting on my garden last year wont do that again good luck and do let us know how you do :)

yukon cornelius

maybe a fall add on then. a few places I read the it helped more claypacked soil to drain and mat it light and fluffy. one said that it yellowed the plants early on in the spring but then by fall they produced higher than ever. others said never ever for any reason do it. its a toss up I have no choice but plant in the field as it is the only near level non solid rock slab mountainside place on our property. the dirt was suprisingly black in this red clay Missouri Ozark area. this will be the second full summer we have owned this place and it has been a slow process. we have 30 acres and the very back corner of our triangle piece of land ends in a hayfield. our piece of the hayfield is about 1.5 to 2 acres. 450 feet elevation drop from the front to the back that includes going down a hill back up another and back down to the field. it is steep property. we try to be as self sufficient as possible so this garden has to provide!
It seems I am a coarse thread bolt in a world of fine threaded nuts!

Making a living with a manual mill can be done!

beenthere

If you mix in sawdust, you will need to add nitrogen as the breakdown of the wood takes (steals) nitrogen.
And the yellow plants are signs of lack of Nitrogen.

Clay soil is best worked in the fall, and then freezing in winter makes it much more tillable.
But don't spring-till clay when it is wet... just ends up in hard clods (clumpy) until the following spring.

thecfarm's suggestion is very good to prepare for planting.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Larry

When I lived in Missouri, the MU extension office would soil test at a very reasonable cost.  Had to drop off a soil sample and a month later they would have the results.  They worked up what soil amendments were needed so money/efforts could be used for the biggest bang.

I soil tested not only garden but for crop fields.  Of course the chemical dealers would test for free and recommend supplements.  They may of had an interest in what to recommend. :D
Larry, making useful and beautiful things out of the most environmental friendly material on the planet.

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Ianab

Start making some compost. Sawdust, cow / horse manure, garden waste, kitchen scraps etc

Mix it all up and let it rot down. Give that 6 months to cook, and you have something useful for the garden.  Then you have good organic material without the nitrogen loss and messed up pH of using too much fresh material. The nitrogen used up by the decay bacteria etc becomes available again once the process is complete.

Prepare your ground with the green cover crops as Cfarm suggests. This reduces the weeds, and you dig the plants for more organic material.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Delawhere Jack

Never use walnut sawdust. It will kill most garden plants.

Ianab

Quote from: Delawhere Jack on April 08, 2014, 05:10:13 PM
Never use walnut sawdust. It will kill most garden plants.

True, the Juglone is a natural herbicide that walnut trees produce to keep down competition. Last thing you want scattered around your garden. But it breaks down over time in a compost heap, so it's safe to use it there. By the time the compost is ready, the juglone is gone.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

landscraper

^^Compost it^^^

I used to run a tubgrinder.  Got stuck with a lot of "mulch" that no one wanted because, it's not really mulch, it's ground up stumps.  I took one pile and composted it using poultry litter for nitrogen.  Turned the windrow with a trackhoe a couple of times a year for 3 or 4 years until it stopped steaming and was loamy, and then I screened it and sold it as compost.  I have the dregs of the pile out back and I add some to the garden every year.   Always get good results, it adds a lot of organic matter to the soil and really makes it loose and workable.
Firewood is energy independence on a personal scale.

21incher

I used to use it around my raspberry plants for mulch.
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

yukon cornelius

thanks for all the advice! I will leave it out for now. waiting a year on this garden is out of the question. we have to have a garden. we fish a lot and I keep them in a tank until I have enough to clean so at our last house we used the water from the tank and pumped it on the garden. the results were amazing. the areas that the water reached the plants produced double the plants that didn't get it. this place is not that easy but I might figure out a way to get it there.
It seems I am a coarse thread bolt in a world of fine threaded nuts!

Making a living with a manual mill can be done!

WDH

Good decision.  Raw sawdust will nuke your garden for at least a year. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Peter Drouin

Quote from: WDH on April 08, 2014, 09:42:18 PM
Good decision.  Raw sawdust will nuke your garden for at least a year. 


smiley_thumbsup
A&P saw Mill LLC.
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License NH softwood grader.

yukon cornelius

cfarm what is a good, affordable cover crop?
It seems I am a coarse thread bolt in a world of fine threaded nuts!

Making a living with a manual mill can be done!

thecfarm

Non is cheap,buckwheat will smother out alot of weeds and grass. We have used that in the past,clover will help too. I priced buckwheat probably 5 years ago and was shocked on the price. Can't remember now,but I felt was kinda pricey. There might be something better,but that is what was used by my Father and it worked.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Ianab

Mustard is what's usually used locally. In our climate it will grow over the winter and keeps the weeds and pests down while the garden is "fallow". Then dig it in at the start of spring, a few weeks before planting.
http://www.tuigarden.co.nz/product/tui-cover-crop-mustard-seed

If you have a colder winter I guess you could plant it in the autumn, as long as you had ~6 weeks before things freeze up.  Then when the snow's gone, cultivate what's left into the ground?

The fish waste water is probably helping. It will be high in Nitrogen, and that along with some extra water will give the plants a boost. I can tell where I siphon my fish tank out on to the back lawn, it's noticeably lusher at the bottom of the steps where the hose reaches too  :D

I also used some liquid plant food on my container plants (Strawberries and chillies) this year and they did better than previous years. Still getting some strawberries and it's middle of autumn here.  ;) It's just a general purpose plant food, soluble nitrogen, phosphate, sulphate etc. Keeps the plants going when they use up the nutrients in their potting mix. Same idea as your "fish water"

Get a couple of compost bins started for next year though. As a long term thing it will help your soil, and will make use of your stray sawdust and shavings. Mixed in with grass, leaves and kitchen waste it breaks down pretty quick.

Ian
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Ljohnsaw

My 2 cent are the same - don't use it in a garden.  We had horses and use wood shavings for bedding.  Had a bad garden the year I mixed it in.  But, I found a great use.  I spread newsprint between my row/plants and piled on about 6-8" of stall waste.  Not a single weed and I think some nutrients worked their way down as I watered from above.  By the fall, pretty much broke down and I tilled it in for the winter.

However...

I've got this really, really fine dirt (locals call it moon dust) that is dark brown and won't take water because it's so fine.  And then when it finally does (from snow melt), it is a slippery, deep mess.  Not planning on planting anything but want to do dust control and possibly mud control.  I was thinking of using the sawdust from my mill (when I start my cabin build) to spread on my forest road in an effort to control the dust.  It would gradually mix in as I use the road for my quad - might even drag a drag to speed up the process.  Worthwhile?  Don't want to buy 1,000 yards of gravel!
John Sawicky

Just North-East of Sacramento...

SkyTrak 9038, Ford 545D FEL, Davis Little Monster backhoe, Case 16+4 Trencher, Home Built 42" capacity/36" cut Bandmill up to 54' long - using it all to build a timber frame cabin.

Brucer

I have gleaned a bit of information on sawdust from various customers (who get it from me free of charge).

The organisms that break down sawdust need nitrogen in large quantities. They will deplete your soil of nitrogen as the proliferate. If they can't get enough nitrogen, the sawdust won't decompose fully. Once the sawdust has broken down, the organisms die off and return all the nitrogen to the soil.

My customers who are successful with this use various sources of nitrogen -- nitrogen fertilizer, manure, compost. They all tell me they have to mix it well, keep it in one area to compost, and make sure it is kept moist -- but don't flood it with water or the nitrogen will get washed away. They also mix some garden soil in with the sawdust to help the water and organisms migrate through the pile. Without the soil/manure/compost, you'll just get a big pile of sawdust with a little decomposition on the surface.

A couple of customers have used sawdust on their garden paths to act as a mulch and keep the weeds down. They apparently neglected the part about the decomposed sawdust "giving back" the nitrogen. One of them stopped using it after his paths started to produce better crops in the second year :D. The other one now puts fresh sawdust on her paths each year after raking off the previous years sawdust. The old stuff (partly rotted) goes into a pile for another year's compost.

Everyone says it takes a few years of experimenting to get the right combination of sawdust, soil, additives, and moisture. Done properly, the stuff seems to decompose nicely in a year.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

yukon cornelius

Quote from: ljohnsaw on April 08, 2014, 11:30:02 PM
My 2 cent are the same - don't use it in a garden.  We had horses and use wood shavings for bedding.  Had a bad garden the year I mixed it in.  But, I found a great use.  I spread newsprint between my row/plants and piled on about 6-8" of stall waste.  Not a single weed and I think some nutrients worked their way down as I watered from above.  By the fall, pretty much broke down and I tilled it in for the winter.

However...

I've got this really, really fine dirt (locals call it moon dust) that is dark brown and won't take water because it's so fine.  And then when it finally does (from snow melt), it is a slippery, deep mess.  Not planning on planting anything but want to do dust control and possibly mud control.  I was thinking of using the sawdust from my mill (when I start my cabin build) to spread on my forest road in an effort to control the dust.  It would gradually mix in as I use the road for my quad - might even drag a drag to speed up the process.  Worthwhile?  Don't want to buy 1,000 yards of gravel!

I think your moon dust is the way I would describe our dirt aeound our cabin and all around us in the woods portion. it turns to a powdery almost lomy soil when dry and then when it gets wet it is the slipperiest mud I have ever been around. I grew up on a farm and I know mud! this is like nothing I have ever been around. our neighbors agree. its like black clay or something. when wet you cant do anything on it and its hard to grow anything in it. last year we struggled to grow a few tomatoes in it. it had all the signs of too much nitrogen.  now the field section seems to be some decent dirt but I want to make it better. it will be a challenge though due to its inaccessibility. its an atv ride only. we load the tiller on the atv (which is an interesting ride) just to get it back there. wildlife will probably rob us blind back there. I plan on putting up a tall fence for deer but I know it wont keep out coons and other small animals. I really hope it works out this year.
It seems I am a coarse thread bolt in a world of fine threaded nuts!

Making a living with a manual mill can be done!

MikeON

Here is a little different take on sawdust.  I'm going to try it on part of my garden this year.

http://us.naturespath.com/blog/2009/07/10/sawdust-my-slave
Woodmizer LT40HD Super.  WM Single Blade Edger,  John Deere 4310 tractor, M35A2C Deuce and a Half truck

drobertson

Quote from: WDH on April 08, 2014, 09:42:18 PM
Good decision.  Raw sawdust will nuke your garden for at least a year.
this is what happened to me a few years ago, I accidently got the pile of dust in the corner, thinking it was good enough I went for it, two year old dust/chicken poop,  Nuclear devastation , as mentioned very yellow plant growth, 
only have a few chain saws I'm not suppose to use, but will at times, one dog Dolly, pretty good dog, just not sure what for yet,  working on getting the gardening back in order, and kinda thinking on maybe a small bbq bizz,  thinking about it,

justallan1

I don't know how big of a garden you are shooting for, but have you considered raised beds? You can put them anywhere and bring some good soil to them. They take a lot less soil if you end up hauling some and you're not fighting the weeds near as much. Last year I used old cat litter buckets and they were great. If your not picky as to looks you can use anything for beds.
Just an idea.

Allan

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