Sidmouth

Hello, my name's Lou Pritchard, and I'm from Tipton St. John.

And I would like to know, is there a place for sawdust in the veg patch? And I'm not just talking about, um, paths or the compost bin.

Okay.

Do you have access to lots of sawdust? Is that why the question is-

I do.

I've been given big, dumpy bags full of the stuff.

[laughing] Okay.

Uh, Pippa, is there a place for it?

Can you tell me a bit more about your sawdust? So is it fine sawdust? Is it more like wood chip? And what's the wood origin? What was the wood that it came from? What was the purpose of that wood?

Okay.

So it is fine sawdust, um, but the origins, I don't know.

It's come from lots of, um, preparation from logs for the fire, so I don't think it's diseased wood.

I'm certainly hoping it's not.

I, I was, in this instance, unusually for me, I wasn't thinking about disease.

I was thinking about whether it had wood treatment on it or something-

No

... 'cause we do occasionally hear of people that think, "Oh, yeah, that's great, you know, a source of organic matter," and then it's actually got heaven knows what on it as, as wood preservative.

Um, oh, I must admit, I would struggle.

I wouldn't want to be putting large quantities of even sawdust that came from log wood onto my veg plot, not because I'd be worried about disease, 'cause if it was fundamentally healthy and also it came from a tree and I was putting it on a veg plot where I wouldn't be having trees, I'd be having vegetables, it, it really probably wouldn't worry me about the disease threat.

It's more that there is an, a need.

When, uh, wood or sawdust is broken down, there tends to be quite a high drain on the nitrogen content of the soil.

And there's arguments as to the extent of that, to be absolutely honest, but it does seem to be something that is a potential issue.

So by putting in a lot of finely chopped wood, sawdust is the ultimate of finely chopped, it's got a very big surface area on all those tiny little bits of, of sawdust.

You are creating something which I would be worried might rob the soil of too much nitrogen.

Now, you could counteract that using animal manure, well-rotted, uh, high-nitrogen garden compost or something to an extent, but it starts getting a little bit like a, a chemistry lesson.

Hello, my name's Lou Pritchard, and I'm from Tipton St. John.

And I would like to know, is there a place for sawdust in the veg patch? And I'm not just talking about, um, paths or the compost bin.

Okay.

Do you have access to lots of sawdust? Is that why the question is-

I do.

I've been given big, dumpy bags full of the stuff.

[laughing] Okay.

Uh, Pippa, is there a place for it?

Can you tell me a bit more about your sawdust? So is it fine sawdust? Is it more like wood chip? And what's the wood origin? What was the wood that it came from? What was the purpose of that wood?

Okay.

So it is fine sawdust, um, but the origins, I don't know.

It's come from lots of, um, preparation from logs for the fire, so I don't think it's diseased wood.

I'm certainly hoping it's not.

I, I was, in this instance, unusually for me, I wasn't thinking about disease.

I was thinking about whether it had wood treatment on it or something-

No

... 'cause we do occasionally hear of people that think, "Oh, yeah, that's great, you know, a source of organic matter," and then it's actually got heaven knows what on it as, as wood preservative.

Um, oh, I must admit, I would struggle.

I wouldn't want to be putting large quantities of even sawdust that came from log wood onto my veg plot, not because I'd be worried about disease, 'cause if it was fundamentally healthy and also it came from a tree and I was putting it on a veg plot where I wouldn't be having trees, I'd be having vegetables, it, it really probably wouldn't worry me about the disease threat.

It's more that there is an, a need.

When, uh, wood or sawdust is broken down, there tends to be quite a high drain on the nitrogen content of the soil.

And there's arguments as to the extent of that, to be absolutely honest, but it does seem to be something that is a potential issue.

So by putting in a lot of finely chopped wood, sawdust is the ultimate of finely chopped, it's got a very big surface area on all those tiny little bits of, of sawdust.

You are creating something which I would be worried might rob the soil of too much nitrogen.

Now, you could counteract that using animal manure, well-rotted, uh, high-nitrogen garden compost or something to an extent, but it starts getting a little bit like a, a chemistry lesson.