sawdust waste not want not

[pmaczik]

Working with walnut, I was wondering if anyone has used the sawdust from it.  I hear walnut trees are deadly on shrubs and flower.  I guess it has a high acid content.  I was wondering if the sawdust would make good mulch preventing weeds and grass around trees.  I know that most garden items like a pH less than 7.0 pH.  Would it be a good thing to use to lower soil pH in garden?

Pete

[fredhargis]

It's not acid, it's a chemical called juglone, which is a type of herbicide. You can search that term for a lot of info, but it is deadly to certain types of plants and trees. It's also bad news for many animals (including man) so putting it out as animal bedding can really harm the recipient.  I've read a few things about it in sawdust, one being (I have no idea whether this is true) that if you compost it first, it's safe for use. For me, there's little reason to take any chances...it goes to the trash.

[branchacctg]

Generally save about a peanut butter jar's worth of shavings/dust to mix with glue to fill holes/cracks in walnut boards. Do the same with other species as well. Other than that I dispose of the rest for reasons already stated.

[Robert Adams]

Sawdust and shavings are bad for the yard. The bugs decomposing them suck the nitrogen out of the soil so you have to add fertilizer. This is also why you clean up all the shavings from stump grinding. Many years later it's beneficial but it's not the way to go.

      My shavings from woods like oak, pecan, hickory, cherry and other smoking woods all go to trash cans for the grill and smoker. 

           Sawdust all goes in the trash. Mother earth will decompose them along with lots of other waste in big compost pits. When I was in Fort Worth we had a 100 gallon trash can for yard waste and I would dump it in there. The trash guys didn't like it when it was windy as the yard waste truck with the heaviest loads was the only one without the automated can dumper.

[jppierson]

I just sweep all my shavings into a black plastic bag. When I go to start a fire, two handfulls is my tinder, and a single match. No need for lots of real small stuff, just a few sticks of 1.5" wood on top of the shavings, and three normal sized pieces of firewood (two below and one on top of the tinder pile).

[Stwood_]

As above, I save some for crack filling. As for all the rest of it, it gets blown outside with all the other wood chips and dust. If it piles up enough, I put it in the compost pile.

[Steve N]

Generally save about a peanut butter jar's worth of shavings/dust to mix with glue to fill holes/cracks in walnut boards.

I do this too, but I NEVER make any mistakes so I have jars that are really old now of a bunch of various woods








If you believe that I own some really dry land in the everglades that I'll swap for Wampum

[jteneyck]

I'm the odd man out here.  I throw all my shavings, including walnut, on my mulch pile.  My wife turns it all into mulch that we put on the shrubs.  Been doing that for 25 years.  The walnut percentage isn't high because I don't use that much of it, but I have never noticed a problem with plants dying off.  The weeds seem to grow just fine, too, unfortunately. 

Fresh shavings and sawdust don't steal nitrogen from the soil unless mixed into it.  

John

[Arlin Eastman]

All of mine goes into the burn pit and burned every few years with a ton of tree stuff but then again we live in the country

[tomsteve]

along with robbing nutrients, sawdust/chips from the dust collector- when spread around trees/shrubs,flowers as a mulch- eventually compact causing a lack of oxygen to the trees/plants/shrubs.