# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Gardening >  Saw Dust.......is it good for plants.......?

## Sourdough

I have a lot (OK a mountain) of saw dust & saw shavings from the sawmill. What is a good ratio of saw dust to top soil mix.

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## Trabitha

Depends on what it was from.  If it's just from untreated logs, it's fine...if it has chemicals in it of any kind, no so much.

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## Sourdough

> Depends on what it was from.  If it's just from untreated logs, it's fine...if it has chemicals in it of any kind, no so much.


Spruce logs. White spruce, beetle killed and logged.

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## Chris

It is an excellent brown ingredient for compost, but when used in soil (without allowing it to break down first) it temporarily will rob the soil of nitrogen, which isn't a good thing. 

Mix it with some grass clippings, let it sit a year, and you'll have brown gold.

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## Sourdough

Thanks, Chris. I don't have grass clipping, but I have used straw.

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## Trabitha

I love using straw!!!  I swear by it!!  :Wink:

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## edr730

Should be great stuff in the end. Yeah, you'll need nitrogen. Lime or ashes too because hardwoods and many pines are very acidic.

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## randyt

Ditto on the nitrogen robbing. I mulched the edge of my garden with sawdust too create a border and keep the weeds down. Anywoo later that fall I let the chickens in the garden to clean it up up bit. They scratched around the edge and got some sawdust in the garden. That spring after the plants started to grow, they came up yellowish indicating a nitrogen deficiency. It surprised me to see such a little bit of saw dust cause that to happen.

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## Rick

It can be too hot on plants if its still green, too. Compost it and you'll be fine.

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## edr730

Green sawdust from "green" wood?

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## Winnie

I'm being serious here, once you've mixed the sawdust and straw, pee on it every once in a while. It'll help break down the cellulose. And lets face, peeing outside is only one step away from a doorless outhouse!

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## gryffynklm

> Green sawdust from "green" wood?


Green living trees as opposed to from dead wood.

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## edr730

Ohhhh..I thought maybe the sawdust was green south of the 45th parallel which would make them "hot" like manure. Thanks.

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## hunter63

Fresh cut saw dust will kill grass on your lawn, so I guessing it isn't real good right in the garden.
Cleaning up a downed limb, cutting with chain saw, ended up with dead spots.

Have used as tempory pathways.

I might mix sawdust with grass clipping, but sawdust needs to be really aged.

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## EdD270

Pine, and spruce and fir, are generally acidic, while hardwoods are alkaline. Test you soil to see what the Ph level is so you'll get an idea of what the sawdust will do. 
Probably be better to put it into a compost heap with straw, grass, leaves, etc. and let it "cook" to break down before you put it into the garden.

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## Rick

> Green sawdust from "green" wood?


No. Fresh sawdust retains heat. It doesn't circulate air like aged sawdust can so it can be too hot for plants. Manure is considered hot if it is rich in nitrogen. Chicken, horse, sheep, goat and rabbit are examples of manure that have a lot of nitrogen that can "burn" the plant.

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## oldtrap59

I have a local sawmill that lets me come in and collect the overflow from the truck trailers where they load the sawdust and chips. Guess they don't think that sending the hired help out there to clean it up would pay. Anyway. I get my small trailer, which will hold about 1/2 a ton full pretty much as often as I want. Uses include bedding in the rabbit pens, (i have solid wood floors) bedding the chicken and duck houses. After the usefull period is up and it's cleaned out of whichever place it's being used it goes into a large wire bin and will be there for at least 6 months then I'll move it over to the compost heap along with grass clippings, pine needles,(I have alot of these) leaves,(I have alot of these also) wood ashes, bonemeal, lime and bloodmeal. Some of these are added in small amounts but the mix seems to work in the sandy clay soil I have around here. Looking to add alot of this mix to the garden before we plant next year. Added what we had this year but not near enough for the size of our present garden. Sure can see where we used it and where we didn't. This I guess is the long way to answer SD's question. Use alot of sawdust but make sure and age it well before you.

Oldtrap

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## SARKY

I was using sawmill shavings as bedding for my horses and beef critter for years. After mucking out the stalls, it would all go into the garden. Now granted, there was a lot of poop in them shavings but I would have one hell of a garden. It would get tilled into the ground every fall.

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## your_comforting_company

> Manure is considered hot if it is rich in nitrogen. Chicken, horse, sheep, goat and rabbit are examples of manure that have a lot of nitrogen that can "burn" the plant.


A hare has taken up in the dirt-floor part of my shed (mostly storage for shingles and lawnmower pieces) and it likes to hang out in the circle of garlic out by the pear tree. The garlic was doing wonderfully, when it started to turn yellow all of a sudden. The wife asked me what happened to them and I thought it was just too dry, or maybe I poured out some bark liquor or something too close to them. Turns out that 'neath all the vetch and geranium is a big pile of rabbit poops.
Now I know what happened! Good info!

I have a fair sized pile of sawdust from all the beehive components I've been making. I'll be sure to mulch it for next years garden.

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## ClayPick

The most overlooked thing is bark. There’s always a pile where they yard logs. Find one that’s about 20 years old. It will be broken down beyond compost and will be pure humus. Your garden will never thank you enough for the humic acid.

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## PipeStone

I till sawdust in the ground in the fall.  You have to add nitrogen at the same time, I use grass clippings or feather meal.

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## sjhopkins

Be very cautious when collecting sawdust from unknown origins. A Portland handyman gave us a huge amount of sawdust shavings and we were so excited to put them in our compost pile. Later he informed us that the shavings were from a deck he had built using pressure-treated wood. Treated wood contains arsenic-based preservatives. Obviously we didn't want this to end up as a garden amendment and, eventually as part of our food so we emptied the compost barrel and started over. Just a word of caution from my experience!

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## Rick

You don't want to burn it either. Breathing the smoke is bad, too.

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## erunkiswldrnssurvival

in WW11 the british gov. wre building an air craft carrier out of saw dust frozen in water the material was called pycrete. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete Pykrete is a composite material made of approximately 14 percent sawdust or some other form of wood pulp (such as paper) and 86 percent ice by weight. Its use was proposed during World War II by Geoffrey Pyke to the British Royal Navy as a candidate material for making a huge, unsinkable aircraft carrier. Pykrete has some interesting properties, notably its relatively slow melting rate (because of low thermal conductivity), and its vastly improved strength and toughness over unmodified (crystalline) ice, actually closer to concrete.

Pykrete is slightly more difficult to form than concrete

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## Rick

Man, the bunks in that rascal would have been cold. 

"23, why don't you just land?"
"I'm trying but I keep sliding off the bloody deck!" 
"Right. We'll get the sand out."

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## erunkiswldrnssurvival

cant sink a ship made of ice,cause ice dont sink! Captain, the planes are coming in and we 100 pairs of mucluks!

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## crashdive123

I watched an episode of Myth Busters a while back where they explored pykrete.  http://mythbustersresults.com/alaska-special-2

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## erunkiswldrnssurvival

ive done some experimenting with home made Pycrete. it is tough stuff. and very uesful.

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## erunkiswldrnssurvival

here is a link to a saw dust stove design, How to Build and Use a Sawdust Stove - Organic Gardening, Modern ...
Guide to constructing a homemade stove, including illustrated instructions, diagrams, proper burning and efficiency, and installation.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It...ust-Stove.aspx
          I may build one myself.

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## Tenche

I use coconut coir instead of saw dust. I find it works better and my worms in my vermicomposting bin love it.

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## Rick

Where do you find that much coir?

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