From: songbird@anthive.com   
      
   Ralph Mowery wrote:   
   >   
   >   
   > Part of my garden has died off .  I had a pine tree blow over and used a   
   > wood chipper to get rid of most of it.  Would it be ok to put lots of   
   > those chipe in the garden and use a tiller to put it in a mix of the   
   > soil, or should I just leave the wood chips in the woods or put it in my   
   > compost pile ?   
      
     do you have pathways you can use them on?   
      
     mixing them in the soil means more of a nitrogen hit   
   as they break down.  eventually they will give that back   
   but overall i recommend just using some on top to mulch   
   gardens unless you have some perennial plants or shrubs   
   which will tolerate more on top.   
      
     we use wood chips to mulch our perennial gardens and   
   then after some years i have partially decayed humus   
   and woodchips which are much better for adding to the   
   veggie gardens.  i use some of it in the worm buckets   
   as the worms doing their thing to paper and food scraps   
   will give it a lot of nutrients and then that is my   
   primary fertilizer for tomatoes, onions and peppers after   
   that i rotate the beans and peas and garlic through and   
   that works really well.   
      
     if you want them to break down faster, mix some dirt   
   with the pile of wood chips and keep it moist.  you   
   should start seeing some steam come off it in a few   
   days/week on the cooler mornings.  turn it all over in   
   a few weeks and let it cook some more.   
      
     easiest thing for us is to just use them on the   
   perennial gardens and then we let nature do it's own   
   thing.   
      
      
     songbird   
      
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