[NAFEX] Fresh woodchips are fine

Caren Kirk quirky at videotron.ca
Thu Mar 25 11:04:29 EDT 2010


With regards to the fresh wood chips debate, I had a huge maple at the front 
of my property that died and I decided to plant a flower bed surrounded by 
fruit trees ( I am into edible landscaping). The stump was huge and we 
gouged out what we could but there was a lot of chips, even with me hauling 
off a whole bunch to the back where I have heavy clay (the front is all 
sand, I have a full range of soil textures to deal with!).

I had  heard about nitrogen depletion, but I also heard that it wasn't as 
significant or lasted for as long as some sources indicated. For good 
measure I mixed the chips and soil really well, added some corn gluten to 
balance out any nitrogen depletion and left it for about a month.  When I 
planted I mixed in good quality soil, compost and  a balanced slow release 
fertilizer.

Anyway we're coming out of the winter, eager to see how everything has 
survived.  Last summer nothing showed any particular signs of suffering. So 
fingers crossed, it will have worked.

But if I wasn't so lazy as to have left a large quantity of chips there I 
would definity have used it as mulch!

Caren Kirk
St. Jerome QC
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William C. Garthright" <billg at inebraska.com>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 10:51 AM
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fresh woodchips are fine


>
>> Fresh wood chips as landscape cover is fine. But as an additive to
>> enrich garden soil or soil for tree planting I'd submit they should be
>> well rotted.
>
>
> Would you want to use wood chips as a soil additive anyway? I'm
> certainly no expert, but I thought I've heard they'd deplete the
> nitrogen in the soil as they continued to rot. (As a layer on top,
> they'd do the same, but only at the surface.)
>
> Just wondering. I've been using a lot of wood chips for mulch (landscape
> cover, as you say), but nothing else. For that matter, I only put leaves
> and other plant debris on top of the soil, too, not mixed into it.
>
> Bill
> Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
>
> http://garthright.blogspot.com/
>
> -- 
> Look, there has always been something like terror in the world;
> anarchists, liberationists of various stripes, revolutionaries, and of
> course just plain criminals, like the ones that explode bombs among the
> general population because they have some grievance with the world. And
> yet, we had liberties for a while, which we gained while terror was
> around. How did we deal with it? We used the law, and good old police
> work. - John Wilkins
> _______________________________________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex at lists.ibiblio.org
>
> Reproduction of list messages or archives is not allowed.
> This includes distribution on other email lists or reproduction on web 
> sites.
> Permission to reproduce is NEVER granted, so don't claim you have 
> permission!
>
> **YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO POST!**
> Posts from email addresses that are not subscribed are discarded.
> No exceptions.
> ----
> To subscribe or unsubscribe, go to the bottom of this page (also can be 
> used to change other email options):
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
>
> File attachments are NOT stripped by this list.
> TAKE STEPS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM COMPUTER VIRUSES!
> Please do not send binary files.
> Use plain text ONLY in emails!
>
> NAFEX web site:   http://www.nafex.org/ 




More information about the nafex mailing list