Gardening Know How’s composting sawdust page
Ahh, spring is in the air. That means it’s time to put the snow shovels away and get outdoors. (Unless, of course, you live in the southern hemisphere).
While we love woodworking, some of us also have a passion for getting into gardens to grow bushels of fruits and veggies or bunches of glorious flowers. If that’s the case, there’s a great way to make your shop waste serve your garden.
Gardening How To offers numerous tips on gardening know-how, and this particular page tells readers about the ins and outs of composting sawdust. Here, you will find out how much sawdust to add to your cooking compost pile, what kinds of things you have to add to help the compost cook and how to know when it’s ready for use in your garden.
Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t use pressure treated or plywood sawdust in your pile, and walnut has natural plant killers in it. Other than that, happy gardening.
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Sawdust and shavings are good for mulching too.
Jonathan
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The advice against using P.T. Lumber, plys and Walnut is sound, but really you should avoid pretty much any exotic woods as well. Many have oils in them that are not native to your geography and why take chances?
Ralph
Excellent advice, Ralph.
while sawdust make a ok mulch you have to be careful not to turn it over in your soil, it will rob the soil of nitrogen. I usually only use sawdust on plants that are nitrogen fixers like potatoes and other root crops. when I tried using sawdust mulch on beans and other plants that need a lot nitrogen they preformed poorly, I am not sure if there is a direct correlation, but it was enough to convince me. which is why I always compose my sawdust, except I do use it on my potatoes.
Joey
I would have problems separating the various woods I currently use as they mostly end up in my Dust Collection system. For that reason I defer to sending it all out to the waste collection system. On the other hand NOTHING that grows in my yard leaves. All is composted. I get way more grass clippings than I do sawdust and shavings . Hmmm, I can see where something is terribly wrong here!