Slow Stuff As A Fertilizer

Categories: Soils, Fertilizers and Irrigation

How can we use sawdust and shavings from our high school shop so as to

combine it with street sweepings, lawn cuttings, etc., and insure ready

decay without objectionable features?



Do not mix sawdust and shavings with lawn clippings and street

sweepings, because of the great difference in susceptibility to decay.

The lawn clippings and street sweepings, which would contain

considerable horse manure, would be readily transformed into a good

fertilizer by composting. Such treatment, however, would have no

appreciable effect upon sawdust or shavings for a considerable period of

time, and they would still be too coarse in their character to be of any

value unless you have to deal with heavy clay soil, and in that case the

sawdust and fine shavings might be dug in at once and trusted to decay

slowly in the soil, at the same time improving its friability by their

coarser particles. If, however, you are dealing with light sandy loam,

such coarse material would cause too rapid drying out and injure the

plant, which might be benefited by lawn clippings and street sweepings.

The best way to get rid of the sawdust and shavings is to set up an

altar, such as we have in our own backyard - a piece of an old boiler

about two feet in diameter and two and a half feet high, in which we

currently burn all rubbish which is not available for quick composting

into a fertilizer.