Kitchen Garden Forum

I love my new shredder

Just wondering 'cause I've never used mulch before. I'm shredding a tree that came down earlier in the year. Can I use the shredded material as a mulch? Some of the bits are a good size. Was going to put it around the trees in the orchard and the woodland area that we have.

Yes, but...

It will as it decomposes use up available nitrogen.

One way round this is to compost it 50-50 with lawn cuttings and then use the resulting product as a mulch.

Up in Thetford forest by the main road you can often see big piles of the stripped off bark steaming gently. By big I mean 3 storey and about the size of around four full allotments. I think it ends up in the commercial "Forest Bark" product.

BTW Thorns come through a shredder largely unaltered.

erm, we don't have a lawn. Concrete......... although hope to change that soon'ish. Nitrogen being good 'cause...........? Sorry I am a newbie to gardening on this scale. Only ever had a little back yard before and grown in pots.

Nitrogen is what gives lush green growth.

Lack of it results in poor or no growth.

The rotting process is done by primative plants, moulds, and they like the plants we want to grow need nutrients to grow.

Get some of the Dr Henyasson "Expert" pamphlet/books. They are an excellent starting point.

Another word of warning, if you bag up your shreddings they are likly to grow lots of moulds and when you empty the bag you might find yourself in a cloud of grey mould spores, try not to inhale. Chap died from enthusiastic turning of his compost bin and inhaling spores, caught a nasty lung infection.

Peter, you will frighten them off gardening forever!

I use my shreddings as paths to divide up my veg beds. They rot down in a couple of years and can be dug in and are always full of worms, so you can have moveable paths if you want different sized beds - just start a new path with your new shreddings, or top up the existing ones if you want to keep them.

I also use them around fruit trees after giving them a top dressing of fertilizer in spring, to keep the weeds down. Just make sure the soil around the plants is well fed before putting the shreddings down as a top dressing, and there should be enough nitrogen to feed the plant without it being lost to the decomposing shreddings.

cheers guys n gals. nothing is going to put me off. I've been gardening on a small scale for years. this is my first "proper" garden. hoping to get the trees down in January around the front, a hedge planted and some raised beds installed. Just wasn't sure what I could do with the shreddings. Think I will use them for weed suppression in an area that I'm not going to be using for growing.