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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Sawdust, chips, horse manure
  • Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:13:32 -0700

James, thank you for taking the time and making the effort to write a worthwhile post.

To synopsize observations based on my experiences:

Sawdust and shavings or chips rot at different rates and both rot rates vary according to moisture and temperature. Oak is preferable to pine.

A high pile of sawdust or wood chips will take many years to decompose.

Any form of wood refuse rots far faster when mixed with poop and pee.

Any form of wood refuse placed within inches of garden soil rots by next year.

Any form of wood refuse mixed with poop and pee and worked into moist soil becomes indistinguishable from the soil within months.

Do not bring home any horse barn cleanings that include Johnson Grass, whether from mangers or litter. You may never rid yourself of the insidious stuff.

I once wrote a gardening manual wherein I suggested one good way to start a new garden was to pile a mix of organic materials--horse stall cleanings being the best--a foot or two high and then go take a trip around the world studying gardens of other cultures. The next year, pull the remaining material aside just enough to plant according to the Ruth Stout method.

On Feb 20, 2009, at 8:44 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

For several years I went by or went to a stable whose manure pile had been
there for six or eight years undisturbed. I hauled countless pu- loads onto the
garden and corn plots. Then from another horse barn I had the opportunity to
get one or two loads a week where someone from here was going there anyway.
In other words, only the extra gas to haul a load over what it would take for
the empty truck ... no time or dedicated trip involved. But it was fresh stall
manure with the bright new wood shavings.

Wisdom had always said that one should leave the manure in a compost heap at
least a year, and in order to digest the shavings and chips, maybe three to
five. I had a tendency to agree since years ago I got some 25-30 tons of
sawdust delivered (where the sawmill just wanted a place to dump it) and no new
sawdust has been added in 12 years. Some of it still looks like fresh wood and
what I used as mulch would take about three years to decompose.

None the less, I used the raw stable material directly on the garden beds.
This is what I found. Owing, I am guessing, to the presence of nitrogen mixed
copiously in with the wood shavings, a 10" dressing of raw stable gleanings
decomposes entirely into black duff in four to six months on the garden soil.
If it is thicker than that, there is a layer in the middle that stays largely
decomposed.

So during the (hideously dry) fall and winter, I have put the manure 'in
situ' on fallowed beds 20" or more thick. The bottom, in conact with the soil,
rots into compost in a very short time. Some of the beds are turned during
the winter and so most of the manure rots. Those that are not turned will have
the top 10" or so removed in the spring to use as mulch elsewhere and the
bottom rotted part mixed in lightly with the soil.

Also during the spring and early summer the corn and potatoes that were in
rows rather than beds or hills had the alley between rows filled with the raw
manure some six inches or so thick after the corn and potatoes were hoed and
hilled for the last time. It greatly boosted yield and by harvest time you could
not distinguish any of the manure from the soil.

Another trick I used was that when these in situ piles of manure hosted all
manner of fungus, I'd take a few forkfuls of the actively decomposing manure
and innoculate the new beds.

So far my conclusion is that manure from horse barns reeking with urea,
amonia, and all other forms of nitrogen decomposes far faster than sawdust or wood
shavings without it.

James
______

Gene GeRue
www.RURALIZE.com








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