free wood chips by goats and pony

[ronzxcvb]

We are able to get a bunch of free wood chips from the guys that trim by the power lines. My wife wants to put the chips on the roads in the pastures where we have goats and a pony. I heard that you shouldn't because there might be cherry wood in there. Would it be safe because there probably is not any cherries on them yet. or if we let them sit for a couple of weeks would they be safe
We are still fairly new to farming so thanks for the help

 

[greybeard]

Dunno about cherry wood but if you get any rain in your area, the parts of the road you put the chips on will stay soggy forever, and if it's a big rain, they'll just float away.
I have several loads of it, piled up out of the way mulching/composting down for flower bed soil. It takes it a LOOONG time to compost down tho.

 

[Latestarter]

@Baymule did the exact thing you mention you are considering doing. Perhaps she can provide input as well?

 

[Baymule]

We let the power line contractors park their trucks on our place at night, to keep the trucks safe from vandals. In return, they brought us over 100 loads of wood chips. The piles heated up and steamed on cool mornings. The chips are a little over a year old now and have broken down to a black rich compost with bigger wood chips in it. We have used it everywhere.

I have a 31 year old Tennessee Walker mare that has lung issues. We are on fine white sand, called sugar sand locally. It turns to dust when dry. We covered the barnyard with wood chips and inside the barn too. As they break down, we just add more. Some day we'll scoop it up, with all that horse manure in it and use in the garden, then respreads wood chips.

We put the chips in the garden. On top of the sugar sand, I now have about 8 inches of black soil, mixed with sheep and chicken manure.

We spread it on the bare ground to hold down the dust. My husband spread it on the driveway, over the large crushed concrete that was uneven to walk on. We have started spreading chips in the pastures to keep the grass roots from scalding and to add humus to our piss-poor sand.

this picture is of the tomato trellis in the garden, note the truck in the background. We mulched the garden with the wood chips.

This is the driveway. Heavy rains wash the chips around, but a good raking puts them back where they belong. The wood chips sure help to keep the sand from washing away.

We mulched a pasture we sprigged Bahia and bermuda grass in.

Then I sowed clovers and rye grass.

We spread the mulch on another pasture, then I sowed clovers and rye grass on it.

As far as the danger from cherry wood chips, just let the chips set awhile and compost. That should take care of it. The wood chips are a valuable asset to your farm. They sure have been a gold mine for us!

 

[greybeard]

This is the driveway. Heavy rains wash the chips around, but a good raking puts them back where they belong.

I'd have to have a rake with a handle that reached from here to Lake Houston........ Looks like they work good in your porous sugar sand, and there's lots of things I need here but keeping the soil moist isn't one of them,especially on my long driveway. All clay, and I need the water off of it as soon as the rain drops it.

I've seen places here where they ran a brush and sapling chipper thru it to clear crap out, leaving a carpet of cuttings. It never dries out after a soaking rain and sours to all be dang.

 

[mystang89]

wonder if wood chips would work well when planting potatoes. Put on a layer of dirt initially then hill up with mulch?

 

[Baymule]

I'd have to have a rake with a handle that reached from here to Lake Houston........ Looks like they work good in your porous sugar sand, and there's lots of things I need here but keeping the soil moist isn't one of them,especially on my long driveway. All clay, and I need the water off of it as soon as the rain drops it.

I've seen places here where they ran a brush and sapling chipper thru it to clear crap out, leaving a carpet of cuttings. It never dries out after a soaking rain and sours to all be dang.

I've had that gumbo clay and I'll take my sugar sand hands down any day of the week! Those wood chips work well here on the sand. They hold down the dust and have added humus to the soil.

@mystang the biggest potatoes I ever grew were in a pile of leaves mixed with horse manure and lime. The lime was to prevent scab on the potatoes from the horse manure. No reason why you couldn't hill up with mulch, but I'd add some compost to it.

 

[Alaskan]

wonder if wood chips would work well when planting potatoes. Put on a layer of dirt initially then hill up with mulch?

done that... and yes, works fine, but they pack a bit too tight. .. best if you don't use them by themselves, and lighten them up with other stuff...... or use more chips verses dust.

I tend to get more dust verses chips... so I need to watch it.

 

[greybeard]

I've had that gumbo clay and I'll take my sugar sand hands down any day of the week!

No gumbo here Baymule.
Alluvial silt compressed into clay..it's white & chalky looking substance that is very hard, but the top 1/4" of so can get slick as owl pooh if water stays on it for extended periods of time, and if there is one low spot, it holds water and every time you drive thru it it just gets deeper and wider, and longer. Hard bottom tho.
About 3' down, you run into a red gummy clay (depleted iron ore)

 

[Baymule]

That sounds worse than black clay gumbo. I’ll still keep my sand. We have the red iron ore clay too, but for some reason there is about a thousand acres in this spot of sand over the red dirt, and we got 8 acres of it.