What doesn't go in the composter?

[ina]

Can you put tissues and kitchen roll in?

Yes, no problem.

As to sawdust - that's meant to lock up nitrogen, so I would go easy on it. (Can't tell you the chemistry of it - used to know it all, but would have to look it up now.) Which is why you should be careful with horsemuck with sawdust, too - and I wouldn't add it straight to potting compost.

[Millymollymandy]

Sawdust takes a loooooooong time to rot down - we had our neighbours horse muck with sawdust, and unfortunately we put too much sawdust in with it, and a year later it is still sawdust.

I add a little bit to the regular compost bins and that is OK (the sawdust that comes out the chook shed when I pick up the droppings), but when I clean out the shed properly, all that dry sawdust gets taken to the rubbish tip!

[ohareward]

I have sawdust on my paths between the vege plots. You are right that it takes a long time to break down. Mine has been down for 3 years and I am changing it now. It will be going onto the flower beds, because the soil is in great need of breaking up. I also have sawdust in the hen house. Chook poo mixes better with the sawdust and I am going to make a separate pile of the chook poo/sawdust mix and leave it for as long as it takes to break down. I also put small amounts in the compost. Untreated sawdust is quite plentiful here, so that is why I use it.

Robin

[Millymollymandy]

Robin - re. the sawdust on your paths - doesn't it blow away in the wind? Or get stuck to your wellies (gumboots ) in the winter and then get trampled into the soil?

I'm trying to think of something I could make paths from, but at the moment all I do is put down the grass clippings to suppress the weeds. Don't know what else we can do with all the grass clippings!

[Cassiepod]

Can you compost Thistles and bracken? I have masses of both in the garden that I want to pull out but it seems daft to bin.... Should I aim to try a very hot heap for these?

Also do you think bracken counts as a brown or a green?

[Millymollymandy]

I put some dried bracken in my compost. I would count it as brown when it is like that.

Not sure about thistles though. Don't put the roots in whatever you do!

[Annpan]

What about rhubarb leaves? - Old Papa says not to because they are poisonous but I had been puttinig them in my compost as I thought that they were just poisonous to eat.

[Cornelian]

I used to put sawdust in my compost and it seemed to rot down and the garden didn't seem to suffer for it. A local cabinet maker used to come by and dump great sackfuls of mahogany sawdust into my compost piles ... so maybe it was the quality of the sawdust what made it ok.

[Millymollymandy]

Rhubarb leaves - we've had this discussion before! Some people seem to think not and some say it is OK. I've decided it is OK so I do!

Sawdust - maybe the commercial stuff is pine and doesn't rot so well as hardwoods? Though I would have thought the hardwoods would take longer to rot? I dunno!

Anyway, it does disappear when applied to the soil half rotted, so hopefully does the job at the end of the day.

[Jack]

Gidday

I really don't know wher saw dust gets such bad publicity. It is simply great stuff. It will compost down and give a compost with a high fungi content rather than bacteria.

I have used saw dust 6 to 10 inches thick straight on clay in a garden and within 12 months you would never guess there was anything other than good soil.

I have a portable saw mill, and have nilled it hundreds of different places and where the saw dust lands on the soil is normally where tha grass grows best, greenest and seems to be where the stock favour eating before the rest of a paddock. It will only effect the nitrogen if you dig it in and mix if into the soil, and besides who would want to dig when it's better not to?

[ohareward]

From a compost point of view, I think that pine, being a softer wood, the sawdust comes off bigger than hard woods, which is finer. So the pine could take longer to break down. I put pine sawdust on the pathways in my veg plot, and replace it once a year. By that time it is really rotted down. Rhubarb leaves are OK to put on the compost heap. As someone said they are only poisonous when eaten. They can be put in a concoction as an organic insecticide.

Robin

[Millymollymandy]

Robin, I asked you before on this thread about your sawdust paths. Doesn't it blow away in the wind or get stuck to your boots?

The sawdust we have here is not sawdust like from when you've been chainsawing wood, it is little flakes of wood used for animal bedding.

[ohareward]

Hi 3M, The sawdust I use is from a commercial sawmill that has been sold to a landscape supplies firm. They re-sell it. It comes from big circular saws, so it's what I call sawdust. What you are using is shavings from a wood planing machine. Sawdust is heavier than shavings. The sawdust also gets wet when I water the veg, so it is not affected by wind. Also I have the beds raised by pine boards and the paths are down lower, and so protected.

Robin

[Millymollymandy]

Ah. Bum!

It's just that at some point I really need to get boards around the edge of my veg plots and weed suppressant fabric down and something on the top for the paths - but I am at a loss as to what. It mustn't stick to my boots too much in winter so get transferred into the soil or blow away (or be too expensive!).

Currently I just bung all the grass clippings down on my pathways which eventually makes a pretty good weed supressant layer, but gets kicked around by the birds and doesn't look very pretty, plus it is slippery when it rains.

[ohareward]

I use layers of newspaper first then put the sawdust down. You can use cardboard. As you are not going to use the path as a garden it does not matter how thick the paper is. Thicker the better. Have you got access to shingle, small stones or gravel, or anything of that nature.

Robin