Contents
Sawdust in the country is always in abundance during construction work. But does everyone know that this organic material can be successfully used to enrich the soil and increase yields? How to use sawdust with maximum benefit, and will be discussed further.
What will sawdust in the ground
Sawdust is an excellent loosening organic material, if added, the soil becomes light, perfectly passes air and moisture, and does not form crusts. The root system of plants develops better in it, with it there is less trouble for the summer resident, because you can loosen much less often. Sawdust in the soil itself becomes a fertilizer, along with other organic matter. All this is true only if you add not fresh sawdust, but rotted, or at least half rotted.
Fresh sawdust takes nitrogen from the ground, and this cannot be allowed in any way, because nitrogen is very important for a plant at all stages of its life, especially during a period of rapid growth. This means that only rotten sawdust should be used for the garden (for the garden, flower garden), they usually have a dark brown color and not as hard texture as fresh ones. If this process is not regulated in any way, then you can pile them up and wait at least 10 years. The rotting process slows down, because a crust forms on top of such a pile that does not allow moisture to pass through, and there is absolutely no living organic matter inside. It should be accelerated by mixing sawdust with manure, such as horse manure, or by adding them to compost. One more caveat: applying a lot of sawdust makes the soil more acidic. This scares some gardeners, but in vain, you just need to add lime, this will restore acidity.
sawdust as mulching material
You can mulch with sawdust everything that grows in the garden: vegetables, raspberry bushes, strawberry bushes. If you cover the ground in the garden with a layer of 3 cm thick, then moisture will be better preserved in the ground – you will have to water less often. Thanks to such a mulch, weeds practically do not grow between strawberry bushes, the berries are always clean, dry, they are not threatened with rot. Only sawdust must be “prepared” before use in this way: 3 buckets of sawdust are poured onto the spread film, 200 g of urea on top, water is poured over it all (at least 10 liters). You can make several such layers, cover with a film on top, press it down to create a greenhouse effect. After 2 weeks, you can pour mulch on the garden.
It is reasonable to use such mulch in the garden from the beginning of summer, it will retain moisture, and by the end of summer it will smoothly mix with the top layer of soil, making it much more fertile, looser. If you put it in the garden in the second half of summer, there will be less benefit when it rains, when excess moisture should actively evaporate. Too thick a layer of mulch may not have time to mix with the soil, then the earth will need to be thoroughly loosened, and dug up in the fall – a layer of excess mulch will freeze in the spring and will delay the thawing of the earth.
Among the raspberries, a thick layer of sawdust is poured – at least 20 cm, then lime is poured on top and all this is poured over with a solution of urea (1 cup of urea per 1 bucket of water). All this gradually turns into an excellent fertilizer, slowly but constantly coming to the roots of raspberries, and the need for loosening disappears. This mulch protects the bushes from pests. They say that with such top dressing, raspberries give a wonderful harvest for more than 10 years in one place. Strawberries and potatoes are advised to mulch with fresh sawdust of coniferous trees (before pouring, you need to spill them with a solution of urea) – they scare away the weevil and the Colorado potato beetle.
Use in greenhouses
In greenhouses, to enrich fresh sawdust with nitrogen, they are mixed with horse manure or other organic matter. In this case, the manure must also be fresh, and rotted horse manure is mixed with rotted sawdust. This combination causes horse manure to warm up more in the spring, and overheating occurs faster. You can add sawdust to greenhouse beds both in spring and autumn. It is good to put plant residues (grass, leaves, vegetable tops) on the beds in the fall, and put horse manure on top in the spring, sprinkle it with lime and carpentry waste. Then you need to mix all this with a pitchfork, and put straw with soil on top, add ash and mineral fertilizers. If you pour boiling water over it, then such a soil-mineral-organic mixture will warm up faster.
outdoor application
Sawdust is actively used to form beds and get rid of excess moisture.
In the lowlands around the intended beds, a trench is dug 30-40 cm wide and 20-25 cm deep. The earth is transferred from it to the garden, and the trench is filled with sawdust. Thus, the edges are protected from drying out, and a dry path is organized. Later, the sawdust will pereperet and turn into an excellent fertilizer, which will mix with the soil during general digging.
Some summer residents arrange high garden beds. To do this, they dig a trench with a width of at least 1 m, plant remains are placed in it, sawdust with urea is placed on top, then again a layer of grass and leaves, dug earth is placed on top. So that the edges do not crumble and do not lose moisture, they are covered with peculiar sides made of straw and turf (with the roots outward), laid with a film. Many vegetables and flowers like to grow on such high beds. Sawdust mixed with horse manure is introduced into the open ground, but coniferous waste cannot be used for this – they overheat too slowly.
Video “On the benefits and dangers of sawdust”
This video talks about the benefits and harms of using sawdust.
sawdust in compost
Sawdust is most useful as a fertilizer, they make excellent compost. They are mixed (1 cubic meter) with horse manure (100 kg) and bird droppings (10 kg), watered, covered from the cold, and a year later they receive excellent fertilizer for all garden and garden crops. As in any compost, grass is added there (preferably without seeds), leaves, kitchen waste. Manure can be replaced with a solution of bird droppings, mullein or urea.
If you add soil to such compost, and even with earthworms, things will go faster. The finished humus, soft and dark, is completely different from what was put into the compost heap at first, it rather resembles crumbly greasy earth, this is how it is brought into the soil. So, if after construction or carpentry work you have small waste left, do not rush to get rid of them – better arrange a compost heap. The land is inevitably depleted by cultivation, so good fertilizers are always needed.
Video “All you need to know about soil mulching”
Video instruction on soil mulching and types of mulch.
