disposing of dust

Aug 16, 2008 9 Replies

What do you generally do with your wood dust?



For the most part I've been dumping it into the compost pile, figuring by spring next year it should be decomposed enough to spread out on top of the soil. But for a largish project that's a LOT of dust and wood doesn't compost nearly as well as grass clippings and weeds. So what do you do with it - compress it and use it for firesticks or something?



That's fine, but wood shavings along will deplete soil nitrogen, so mix it with grass clippings or decaying leaves. Also -

CAUTION! Don't use black walnut shavings or chips in the garden (or in a horse stall). It's toxic to most plants.

Putting sawdust, or wood chips in a garden will very significantly deplete nitrogen...

All the best,

Offer it on craigslist or freecycle -- people are happy to take it.

Some folks have been successful selling it on eBay as doll stuffing.

That's fine, but wood shavings along will deplete soil nitrogen, so mix it with grass clippings or decaying leaves. Also -

CAUTION! Don't use black walnut shavings or chips in the garden (or in a horse stall). It's toxic to most plants. _______________________________________________

I didn't know that. Guess I'd better find out which is toxic and which isn't since I'll be doing more and more woodworking this winter.

High nitrogen fertilizer mixed in , if no grass clippings

Wet it, press it into flat sheets and stick a sheet of wallpaper on either side. Then write "Ikea" on it.

In my youth, I worked at a small Rhodie nursery......Dug and sold plants remove a lot of soil so we replaced it with approx. 4 inches of sawdust or hog fuel (a very rough sawdust) and sometimes spent hops, whatever was available or cheap...we simply added ample fertilizer to compensate for nitrogen loss. That soil was very productive, lush and a pleasure to work with except for the weeding, digging and work part.......Some years we top dressed and in others we plowed in before planting. Didn't take the time or space to compost first but one could. Rod

All pretty good answers and suggestions. Personally, I like to suck my Wood Dust up in the dust collector. ;~) Sorry.

Bah dum dum dum!

Dust collector? Oh yeah I know what that is, it's that collection of Neil Diamond 8 tracks that I have.

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