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What's the *best* use for a well-rotted wood-and-soil mix?

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  • 10-04-2021 10:40am
    #1
    CelticRambler
    Registered Users Posts: 6,712 ✭✭✭


    An opportunity to acquire a few trailer-loads of topsoil, mostly made up of well-rotted bark and wood, will shortly arise - once I've shifted two dozen tree-trunks out of the way.

    The trees have been lying there for more than ten years, and the soil underneath is wonderfully soft and crumbly, thanks to all the bark, chain-saw shavings and miscellaneous strimmed vegetation that's piled up and decomposed during the decade. I've driven the digger over part of it several times and it doesn't compact at all.

    As I have more or less total control as to when and how much of this material I remove, what's the very best way I can use it? Potting compost? Top dressing for a vegetable garden? Filler for a raised bed or two, and if so for what fruit or veg? Litter for a flock of hens (would need to get hens!) ...?


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    #2
    Reckless Abandonment
    Registered Users Posts: 1,493 ✭✭✭Reckless Abandonment


    From looking into it myself I think the issue would be lack of nitrogen in that sort of mix. It would probably work best as a mulch or for the chickens . Im far from an expert on it but from what I've read it isn't an ideal growing medium mainly because of the lack of nitrogen


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    #3
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 48,479 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    just urinate into it repeatedly first.


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    #4
    CelticRambler
    Registered Users Posts: 6,712 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    Reckless Abandonment wrote: »
    I think the issue would be lack of nitrogen in that sort of mix.

    Hmm. That might explain why a barrow of it used earlier in the year grew masses of clover and not much else.
    magicbastarder wrote: »
    just urinate into it repeatedly first.

    :D Don't think I have enough to spare - all that is going into "traditional" wood shavings and sawdust as part of a compost toilet!


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    #5
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 48,479 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    i think it's best used as a mulch, or breaking up heavier soils if dug through.
    i have a lot of woodshavings and i usually just scatter it in the garden, or as a mulch on the veg beds.

    i know someone else who scatters a woodshavings mulch onto his veg beds occasionally, long enough for it to have killed any unwanted seedlings, and rakes it back up then before planting what he wants to plant.


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    #6
    CelticRambler
    Registered Users Posts: 6,712 ✭✭✭CelticRambler


    Up to now, I've kept conventional wood shavings for the flower beds, as a lot of what I've produced comes from treated timber or timber of unknown origin. However, this material is certifiably "natural" (it's the débris associated with these trunks, about which I posted back in January on the woodworking forum) - other than a small amount of contamination from oil off the chainsaw and the Roundup and whatever else gets sprayed on the adjacent field.

    (Edit: and yes, the "half a dozen" has since become about two dozen! Found some more under the brambles :eek: and have cut some of the longer ones where there was too much of a step-change in diameter. )


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