Sawdust

[dicklaxt]

What do you all do with the sawdust,can it be tilled into the flower beds or is that asking for a termite picnic to occur ?

I had the garbage pick up guys get a face full from a gust of wind as they dumped the can. I started putting it in plastic bags instead of loose in can...kinda funny at first but could have been serious I guess.

The way the stock market is going down I need to recycle it or quit buying..........Dick

[Boyce]

I put mine in a compost pile. It takes from 3 to 12 weeks to turn to soil - depending upon the time of year. Add manure and it will compost even faster.

I would think that you could till in in the soil without any problem.

Boyce

http://members.home.net/boyce-sandy/woodshop.html

[Tom D]

I compost mine, you must have a pile at least 4 ft.by 4 ft.by 4 ft. to produce enough heat to break it down. Fine dust will break down fast if you add any green vegation to it and some fertilizer and keep it moist but not wet. Larger pieces take usally a year. I start a pile in the fall then plow it under in the spring.

[MadMark]

Sawdust doesn't compost well. Too dry. Many woods are too acidic as well. Walnut has an ingredient that kills many plants and is toxic to horses. Fine sawdust will float to the surface after rains. Don't have a good solution for you.

M

[Sonny Edmonds]

I have a gate to a slope on the back of my property. This slope gets clippings, pruneings, and even the saw dust.

Well, you ask what we do with the saw dust, I dump it on my hill.

I spread it some as I dump it. In a gadzillion years I might gain and acre.

Anyway that's what I'm doing with my saw dust.

Big help, huh?
LOL
Sonny

[Lou_williams]

It will not cause major issues in the soil that you worry about. It will add some benefits by breaking up a clay soil much like a compost. But, it will pull nutrients out of the soil as well. If you add it to your compost pile you must add lots of green material and Nitrogen rich material as well. But lots of us have had good results. In California we have a lot of heavy clay soil. Anything added helps to lighten it. In Florida and the sandy soil there It would not help much at all.

[Glen]

Lou,

I beg to differ my friend. With pine you may be concentrating acid and oak i believe will concentrate tanic acids. Used with care and moderation or added lime its okay.

I have a pair of great danes and keep their business area freshened with it.

Glen

[Lou_williams]

Glen,

I don't disagree with you at all. I don't work with pine, and Don't use much of it in any one place. Tannic acid from my oak is a very low concentration of an acid. My soil is very alkaline and could use the acid anyway.

[MadMark]

Yeah, you mix sawdust with our sandy soil and the first rain that comes the sawdust floats to the top.

M

[Mark]

I try to compost as much of my sawdust as possible, but sometimes I forget to remove the solid wood dust from my dust collector before I run some kind of a man made material through it and I get it mixed with the solid wood dust. Then I will throw it out to the trash. I don't think that I want to mix all of the chemicals with my compost bin. Some of this stuff contains high amounts of formaldehyde and other nasty stuff. Sorry thing about it, probably as much as a Twinkie.

Mark