Re: compost
If you have soil with poor texture, i.e. very sandy or
solid clay, then it will improve your soil. It helps clay
from turning to brick, and it helps sandy soil to hold
moisture. If you already have good soil texture(sandy
loam), then I'd leave it out.
It will add very little nuitrient to the soil, especially
if it hasn't been composted first. To compost it you'd want
to add lots of "green stuff" (manure, low fiber plant
materials, or other high nitro stuff) to it to provide the
needed nitrogen to break it down. The nitrogen "robbing"
the other respondents refer to is that the nitrogen is tied
up by the bacterium breaking down the sawdust. The nitrogen
is still there, it's just unavailable to your plant. The
nitrogen is released back into the soil when the bacteria
run out of sawdust to eat.
So if your needing to break up clay soil, or add some
holding capability to sandy soil, then I'd go ahead and use
it, but add extra nitro fertilizer to make up for the
temporary loss from the decomposition. If you crop rotate
your AG, then add the sawdust and green stuff to the plot
for 2002, so it has time to compost. You can also compost
it in a pile, and add it to the patch after it's composted.
Keep in mind that sawdust falls into the catagory of
"brown stuff" (straw, leaves, or other high carbon stuff)in
composting terms, usually the cheapest and most available
item for composting. If your getting it free then great,
but if your having to buy it, then look for a cheaper
source of "brown stuff".
Matt
--- robert fifield <rfmailbag@uswest.net> wrote:
> list,
>
>
>
> Is saw dust good for my pumpkin patch?
>
>
> Robbie
>
>
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=====
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Matt Moore
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