Thread: Making compost

good luck.

I knew a man whose business generates heaps of pine sawdust, more than he could sell to pet shops etc.

He kept chooks so he used to put it in the chook pens until it was well mixed with chook poo.

He then tried aerating it and/or putting it under pressure in an effort to break it down .

Last I heard he had no success even after several years he was not able to break it down in large quantities.

The best he could do was put a thin layer over his gardens and add in manure and lime to sweeten the soil.

He finished up shipping it all over Australia for the price of the packing and shipping as a cheaper alternative to paying to have it disposed of.

With only a trailer-load you won't have the same problems, but it might not be as easy as you think

Doug

I put chainsaw chips, saw dust and wood lathe dust under the bushes, they seem to love it. If you want to compost saw dust add some animal droppings, some kitchen scraps, grass clippings and some dry leaves. Turn it every few months with a manure fork (next to the manure knife ), My composter is built of four pallets wired together at the corners. Not pretty but extremely effective. We get about a cubic meter of compost out each year.

Hi Art,
Based on some reading I did a long time ago.....Woodshavings/sawdust all from dry heartwood are about 250 to 1 carbon to nitrogen, green heartwood is about 500 to 1 C to N, (if it included sapwood/bark the values may be different and would possibly contain a greater range of minerals given that the sapwood/bark is the living part of the tree) green fresh grass clippings are about 25 to 1 C to N as is fresh horse poo, (largely depends on what the horse is fed) to make a hot compost pile there needs to be this ratio of about 25 to 1 C to N, so you need to add quite a bit of N to straight sawdust to get it to heat up, however, the bacteria that generate the heat in a hot compost pile don't break down the cellulose /lignum parts of the wood, that is the job of the fungi/mould/woodlice/millipedes and a probably a whole heap of other things which is a much slower process, 2+yrs at least, whereas a hot compost pile will go from 60°C to cold in 4 to 6 weeks and to further break down it becomes the job of the fungi/mould etc...

My process for using sawdust is as a path, it takes about 2+yrs for a sawdust path to breakdown, I make them about 4" thick, during that time I'll add nitrogen to the path which will turn it darker and seems to help in breakdown, moist shavings breakdown faster than dry, after enough time I'll then use it on top of a vege bed 1/2" thick at most as a surface mulch.

fruiting part of fungas.jpg
The fruiting part of a fungas in the cold compost pile I made a while back and did a thread of, this is one of the myriad breakerdowners of the woody stuff.




Pete

My system is much the same as Rob's. Re-used pallets for the container, woodwork shop sweepings + grass clippings & stuff from the shredder.
Does need plenty of nitrogen to help with the breakdown http://www.theecologist.org/green_gr...ertiliser.html

Another good source of N is nettles (Urtica dioica L.) or Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L.) A dustbin full topped up with water & left for a few weeks makes a handy, if smelly, N rich liquor for the compost bin.

Mark

Originally Posted by Old-Biker-UK

My system is much the same as Rob's. Re-used pallets for the container, woodwork shop sweepings + grass clippings & stuff from the shredder.
Does need plenty of nitrogen to help with the breakdown http://www.theecologist.org/green_gr...ertiliser.html

Another good source of N is nettles (Urtica dioica L.) or Comfrey (Symphytum officinale L.) A dustbin full topped up with water & left for a few weeks makes a handy, if smelly, N rich liquor for the compost bin.

Mark

That's a good link Mark, looks like some further interesting reading there as well.


Pete

At this time of year we have weeds popping up everywhere. It was dust in October and it's the jungle now, crazy. Anyway, instead of lamenting all the weeds, I've been building compost piles like crazy. We had some trees come down in a storm recently and the council tree loppers were more than happy to empty their truck at my place rather than schlep the lot to the tip. 12 cubes! I'm actually thinking of fertilising the Wandering Jew to give me more N for my humungous pile of C


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My weeds get the exit earth treatment pronto!! If I don't get right onto them they very quickly develop
flowers and seeds. I am gradually getting on top of the buggers.

I don't have enough to help with compost and at present My mower needs a minor repair to collect the grass clipping.

I have been simply letting the clippings fall as mulch as the soil is very poor. I might try the neighbours to see if they
donate their clippings. With everything growing at a rate of knots up here it should take no time to get a decent amount.

I have had a number of nasties to eradicate here but by far the worst have been spiny burr grass and devils fig.

The former is native to Australia while the latter is from Mexico/Central America.

I took samples to the council but neither is on the list of Noxious weeds/plants!! God knows why not.

I have removed hundreds of the devils fig plants from the yard and garden and I also patrol the neighbourhood
roadsides. When found I take the trusty maddock and remove the mongrels from the safety of the soil. If they
have no seeds I throw them onto the hot road and this ensures their demise. Any seed heads are removed and
destroyed with fire.

I also remove any Cocos palms that pop their heads up along with tobacco bush and glycine. Almost a full time occupation!!

Originally Posted by Berlin

At this time of year we have weeds popping up everywhere. It was dust in October and it's the jungle now, crazy. Anyway, instead of lamenting all the weeds, I've been building compost piles like crazy. We had some trees come down in a storm recently and the council tree loppers were more than happy to empty their truck at my place rather than schlep the lot to the tip. 12 cubes! I'm actually thinking of fertilising the Wandering Jew to give me more N for my humungous pile of C


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Good going on the truck loads of mulch, not sure how I know this but I think it might have been talkback radio, anyway the issue was mulch forming a water resistant blanket, I have seen here a little bit where I've had a lot of fine sawdust (in the DC bin) to empty and it will form a dense matt after some time spread out, however, if I have been doing a lot of jointer/thicknessing and I have bigger curly shavings the dense mat forming doesn't occour, so your chipped stuff at a guess is a mix of leaves/branches and big chip, this mix allows water to penetrate better thru the mulch to the soil and do all the good mulch stuff.

How are you using the chipped stuff? Mulch/paths/hot or cold compost?



Pete

Originally Posted by artme

I have had a number of nasties to eradicate here but by far the worst have been spiny burr grass and devils fig.

The former is native to Australia while the latter is from Mexico/Central America.

I took samples to the council but neither is on the list of Noxious weeds/plants!! God knows why not.

I have removed hundreds of the devils fig plants from the yard and garden and I also patrol the neighbourhood
roadsides. When found I take the trusty maddock and remove the mongrels from the safety of the soil. If they
have no seeds I throw them onto the hot road and this ensures their demise. Any seed heads are removed and
destroyed with fire.

I also remove any Cocos palms that pop their heads up along with tobacco bush and glycine. Almost a full time occupation!!

They sound a bit nasty Art, I maybe know the spiny burr grass, if it's the one I'm thinking off it's low to the ground with sharp barbed seeds that really stick in, I should google it, I'm on the internet
I'm not too bad here for weeds, a few annoying ones, plenty of nut grass and a few of the running types, one day I'll have the whole back yard filled with chooks, timber storage and no nut grass



Pete
Just googled it, not the one I'm thinking off but the seeds look just as vicious.

Rotten mongrel stuphph!!!!

Turkeys will clean it up.

For small infestations or isolated plants I use a mix of 25% Roundup and 75% water.
I apply e drop smack in the centre of the plant with an eye dropper. Really sorts the
problem out!!!

Freshly chipped/shredded pruning/loppings already have water in them, sawdust from woodwork is very dry.

The fresh stuff makes good mulch, the dry stuff doesn't.

As already mentioned, composting requires a reasonable amount of fresh material to work.

If you want to compost the sawdust, you need to mix it with fresh material.

Originally Posted by artme

Rotten mongrel stuphph!!!!

Turkeys will clean it up.

For small infestations or isolated plants I use a mix of 25% Roundup and 75% water.
I apply e drop smack in the centre of the plant with an eye dropper. Really sorts the
problem out!!!

I'd have to do the whole backyard with roundup to get rid of it that way, I mulch it out (path) or if I am develpoing a new vege patch and as time goes by with soil impoving I can dig it out, I rarely get it all the first go but eventually I get it, I then leave the the roots, nut and the blade/leaf (green bit) on some concrete to dry out and that's the end of that.

Originally Posted by pjt

How are you using the chipped stuff? Mulch/paths/hot or cold compost?



Pete

Pete, I've spread a small amount but most is heaped up into a big pile. I sprinkled a high nitrogen fertiliser between layers and watered it all and will let it hot compost. A lot of it was tree tops so there is a lot of green amongst the wood chip.

I've made a series of smaller piles and am making an experimental grey water filter, a sort of wood chip swale with a piece of ag pipe running through it. In theory the grey water then soaks into the ground behind the swale and the bacteria in the pile mop up the 'grey' while they build my compost. We'll see.

Matt