is this true?

I was going to say a lot if smart stuff about nitrogen and alleopathy but y'all beat me to it.

I was really excited to use my new knowledge and you ruined it.

Didn't I read something on here about avoiding mulch from cypriss?
 
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I like using wood chips in my front yard. Every year and a half, I apply about 2-3 inches. I have been here 3 years, and when I kick my heel into the ground out there, I go down about 4 inches and get rich, black, worm filled organic material, thick root mats, and all kinds of cool fungal organisms.

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I'm pretty much seeing the same results at my home.
 
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I was going to say a lot if smart stuff about nitrogen and alleopathy but y'all beat me to it.

I was really excited to use my new knowledge and you ruined it.

Didn't I read something on here about avoiding mulch from cypriss?

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I heard from Rock the Earth/ Save the Cypress Coalition that big box stores were selling cypress mulch from gulf coastal areas. Clear cut harvesting and road building in the marshes is supposedly really killing the forests and wetlands---hurricane protection. Then it is being shipped all over the country, probably by diesel trucks--high energy imparted to the non-local product.


We mulch our own trees and garden beds with fresh chips with good results. We don't have time to wait around for them to fully compost. We actually run short. Some of my customers and local school gardens and organic farms like to get them.
 
This post hits on a bunch of good stuff. Indeed, pH is on a logarithmic scale so one full pH unit lower is ten times as acid. Where all of this shifts is that soil at a given pH varies in buffering capacity, the resilience or resistance to changing it's pH as acid or basic stuff is added. High organic matter contents tend to buffer pH.
Another problem with fresh chips is that you'd rather they go through the heat-producing stage *before* application. That's the biggest reason for composting, that and to let some disease critters pass on through.

"Tieing up" nitrogen was the big scare directed towards organic gardeners in the sixties and found, again in most cases, to be of little consequence. This is especially true for surface applications of mulch.

There's lots more here but got to run to catch the ferry to the Aran Islands out of Doolin!
 
"Concerning nitrogen sequestration as i see it: Mulching with any product with a high carbon-to-nitrogen (C:N) ratio, such as straw, hardwood bark, ground wood pallets can induced a nitrogen deficiency in yew, river birch, and rhododendron or any other shallow rooted plant or new transplant."

Yews are shallow rooted? In what universe? I suggest the Prof. try pulling a mature yew out of the ground (with a truck LOL) and then tell us they are shallow rooted!

"It is a different story, however, if one is foolish enough to amend backfill soil with wood chips."

This quote is spot-on, though. I once used some pretty well composted chips to stretch out some soil for containerized veggies and decorative plants, and had the worst crop EVER. I believe it was due to the chips tying up the N, as Boston Bull and Dan have agreed.

Edit: Now that I read KT's post, I would like to hear more about 'tied-up' N. If not that, what caused my veggies and plants to grow so poorly? The woodchips were the only variable in the soil, and I have been mixing my own container soil for quite a few years.

-Tom
 
I do not, repeat do NOT, dig my chips into the soil. I don't care how long they have been composted. Here where I live, six months will not break down whole tree chips sufficiently to be used as an amendment INTO the soil. So it will tie up N. For vegetables and other annuals you do need to be particularly careful because even if you use this as top dressing, you will knock some down into the soil as you pull weeds, or the plants at the end of the season. Again, thereby tieing up N. I always hit my annuals and vegetables with Miracle-Gro to compensate for this.

We use whole tree chips as a top dressing and let them decompose on their own. And we do this extensively. Not only here at the house, but with many clients' trees. We emphasize to people DO NOT DIG IN...TOP DRESS ONLY. The benefits are immense. We personally feel the decomposing process itself is what adds so many benefits down through the soil, so like to have this process occur on site. We tell people that as this is an organic material, fungi will happen. If it is unsightly, a simple scuffing of a rake or foot will hide the fruiting body.

Chips, in our experience, will not heat up if spread at the recommended 3 to 4" layer. They will heat up if piled deep. (Or left in the truck overnight.) Those I like to spread thin to cool down quickly so as not to damage any surface roots, or simply put in an area further away from tender roots.


Sylvia
 
now i am under the impression that miracle grow is made up of salts which are very effective at killing lots of beneficial soil critters. I found this to be true when I added a bag of straight nitrogen to a heap of woodchips, thinking that it would speed up decomposition. True, the woodchips heated up, but six months later, no signs of any life in there. Brewwaste on the other hand brings in all kinds of exciting life and worms after the heat phase is over.
 
I use fish emulsion and kelp extract. Screw that Miracle-Gro-synthetic-runoff-fish-kill-algae-bloom-polluting stuff!

If we could somehow watch N runoff from our 'burbs to our bays from an aerial view camera, I bet there would be alot less use of the everyday OK ferts.

-Tom
 
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I use fish emulsion and kelp extract. Screw that Miracle-Gro-synthetic-runoff-fish-kill-algae-bloom-polluting stuff!

If we could somehow watch N runoff from our 'burbs to our bays from an aerial view camera, I bet there would be alot less use of the everyday OK ferts.

-Tom

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Preach it Tom!
 
I applaud the impression of refusal to use synthetic fertilizers made by several here. This is a good sign. I am assuming therefore, none of you put any synthetic fertilizer on your lawns, nor weed and feed products and adhor the use of pesticides and go for manual/biological control of insects.

Good for you.

I definitely limit my use of fertilizers to my vegetables and annuals. I have a less than 90 day growing season. The ground water here is 270 ft below ground and I am 3 miles away from the nearest irrigation ditch and 10 miles away from the nearest river down hill.

I wouldn't add nitrogen to a mound of composting debris, I let nature take its own time. And don't understand how that equates to proper labeled use of product.

The point of my post was the fact that whole tree chips are very beneficial to the soil and promote the life within if used properly.

BUT used improperly, such as turned into the soil, will tie up N.

TOP DRESS ONLY!!!

Sylvia
 
IMHO, fresh chips used as mulch is not much different than freshly fallen limbs and logs in a forest. They will take time to decompose to a usable state but trees and other understory vegetation are adapted to it. The key would be it functioning as a top layer much like it would in a natural setting. It being mixed in with the top layer of soil as a process of weeds being removed isn't all that different than natural process either.


Typical mulch mixed with soil will also heat up when spread to deeply.
 
One thing that could raise eyebrows for some users of chips, this a certain species and a certain time of year.

If it's say a bigleaf maple and a heavy crop of seeds made way through the chipper intact, there could be dozens to thousands of small trees growing.

I used to put the chips down at my mother's 2 acre yard thick enough, that I could graze the surface with a rototiller and uproot the seedlings without lifting soil.

Thick mulch even makes the hand weeding easier.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I applaud the impression of refusal to use synthetic fertilizers made by several here. This is a good sign. I am assuming therefore, none of you put any synthetic fertilizer on your lawns, nor weed and feed products and adhor the use of pesticides and go for manual/biological control of insects.

Good for you.

I definitely limit my use of fertilizers to my vegetables and annuals. I have a less than 90 day growing season. The ground water here is 270 ft below ground and I am 3 miles away from the nearest irrigation ditch and 10 miles away from the nearest river down hill.

I wouldn't add nitrogen to a mound of composting debris, I let nature take its own time. And don't understand how that equates to proper labeled use of product.

The point of my post was the fact that whole tree chips are very beneficial to the soil and promote the life within if used properly.

BUT used improperly, such as turned into the soil, will tie up N.

TOP DRESS ONLY!!!

Sylvia

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Sylvia-

By no means was my post directed at you; I have just struggled with figuring out ways to avoid so many 'household' chemicals and ferts, and I am still learning. The hard way, mostly.

I just gave up the use of most of these things because I found myself being hypocritical in one way or another with what I have learned vs. what I do or recommend. In most cases it comes down to trying to practice what I preach. I do not use ANY synthetic fertilizers period. Nor do I use chemical herbicides, insecticides, etc. I try to find another way. I live 2 blocks from a bay that is suffering from major runoff problems, and it affects the seafood that is available locally, so to me there's a direct impact. I don't think that the general public will get off the juice anytime soon, though.

I would like to continue this conversation, maybe as another thread at some point, but I gotta go right now!

-Tom
 
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