This topic contains 10 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by greengene 5 years, 11 months ago.
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Lucky you Justin, that old sawdust sounds an excellent mulch, especially with the horse-manure compost on top.
Your rocks won’t go away but they will trouble you less with no dig.I would Justin, looks like good stuff. You’re gonna need a lot of sawdust for 30 acres! Best of luck with it.
I agree with Stringfellow, it’s lovely
I’m excited to see the progress of this. You don’t see many people doing no dig farms as big as 30 acres! Good luck
Hi Jacob, I’ve been there and it works…
Many years ago We had a family business making kitchen-ware turned from wood. We composted the shavings and sawdust by throwing it into a fruit cage along with anything else which had grown and was smaller in diameter than a small finger. Over the years the surface height grew by about 5′ taller than the starting point.
I believe that the rasps liked it as they grow, in nature, in boggy slightly acidic land. Anyway, these canes had to be be bent over to keep them inside the fruit cage!
Good luck with the project.That sounds good. Do I need to add anything to the sawdust before mulching the raspberries? I have mulched my blueberies with sawdust and they seem to like it although I am not sure they have produced 50% more fruit has suggested by John Bond in his book.
I have only given the raspberries blackjack and compost mulches. Per my lottie neighbour my raspberries have been growing in the same place for around 20 years so it will be good to give them a boost although they are still productive. It is a wilderness of canes intermingled with chard, strawberries and couch but my plans for a new fruit garden have been thwarted until I get and prepare another suitable plot.
Greengene,
we just threw in what we had. If it helps bolster your confidence, the wood shavings we used were exclusively hardwood. I’m guessing you have softwood so should rot quickly, especially if the fresh stuff is spread over the rotting stuff so that the fungi doing the rotting is in close contact with the fresh material..Thanks for the rapid reply Neilfrazerm. I get a binbag a week from woodturning, mostly oak along with other hardwoods. I have always been a bit nervous about liberally spreading it around because I have seen so many references to such sources “depleting the soil”. Logically I should have more concerns about using horse manure but ideas like manure good, free stuff bad seem to get ingrained into my thinking.
The thunder and lightning are just edging away now so the soil will be wet, warm and ready for a good mulch. I currently have 1.75 dalek compost bins full of sawdust and will be pleased to free the space for my next batch of comfrey compost. So Win win all round.
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