Got it free - whatever it is??

SprigOfTheLivingDead

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Saw a tree service at a house in town cutting down a huge tree and asked then what they were doing with the chips. They asked me what my address was and said they'd be over later

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Britesea

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Isn't it wonderful? I've got one of those too! I use them as mulch and then dig them in the second year, with extra fungi to help break them down. Seems to be working. We don't have any black walnut in this area, and so far I've not had any problems using these chips.
 

flowerbug

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Saw a tree service at a house in town cutting down a huge tree and asked then what they were doing with the chips. They asked me what my address was and said they'd be over later

View attachment 14861

free long term fertilizer and carbon, always accepted here too, and even more so if they deliver. :)
 

SprigOfTheLivingDead

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free long term fertilizer and carbon, always accepted here too, and even more so if they deliver. :)
Their supervisor asked if I wanted more and I said I'd take more loads whenever they were near.

I have use for it between garden beds as well as between my tree rows in my free farm plot.
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flowerbug

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:) i could use about 10 more truckloads here and then we could say goodbye to what little is left of the lawn. hard to keep up replacing it all or amending it further but i love the idea of it.

we have already done so much like this that the trees now have a deep layer underneath them of decayed wood chips that don't mix with the subsoil because we have a weed barrier fabric down or black plastic. this means that once in a while i can harvest that humus to use in the vegetable gardens, but it also means that once in a while i have add more fresh wood chips as they break down and then weeds start to want to get going in that humus. i love how it all works together, but it is a production line of sorts. :)

good thing we don't have to pay too much for wood chips here and we can use my brother's spare truck to haul them if we can't get them delivered. some years we pick up piles for free like you have and other years we buy them from a local place the grinds their own from hardwood so they last several years before breaking down. the ones that the tree services deliver can be mixed anything and have leaves and stuff in them which is fine for what we do with most of it, but then after using that Mom likes to go back and put some of the cleaner looking hardwood chips on top to make it look neater.
 
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