Load of aged sawdust!

[Ozark Lady]

I just hauled home a cubic yard of well aged sawdust, it is black.

And in the same load I got 1/2 cubic yard of top soil.

So, I will grab my soil testing kit and start testing, first the garden, as is, then the soil, sawdust mix on my truck. (Also an excuse to not have to start shoveling just this moment! )

I am expecting the sawdust to show as acidic, and low in nitrogen. The top soil should be fine, it seems to be a clay sand mix.

I am guessing my soil in my garden to be neutral to slightly acidic.

I have fish meal 10-1-1 and cottonseed meal 6-0-0 plus manure (dried poultry and aged goat manure, unknown composition), bone meal, and wood ashes, so here I go testing, and then playing mad scientist!

Will the sawdust end up being about the same as the leaf mold? Or is it totally different?

[Ozark Lady]

I am now done testing, and I sure got some surprises.

The hauled in dirt is basically blank. It is low in everything, and neutral on ph.

I also ran tests on my garden, and it seems that I have an overload of phosphorus, and am very low on nitrogen.

The good news is my soil is barely acidic, as is the leaf mold that I made.

So, it is time to look for high nitrogen sources, and hold off on phosphorus and potassium, I think soil out of balance, could cause me lots of grief.

And no wonder I lost strawberries, and kill my azaleas, they are barely acidic, almost neutral! And low on nitrogen, like everywhere that I look.

To test my soil test kit, I tested vinegar, bone meal, wood ashes, and fish emulsion. You know the fish emulsion did not register as much nitrogen, the others went really up the chart, but not it.

And my household water tests out at 8.0 ph.

[Sage Hermit]

Dear Ozark Lady

I hope you get it right and your soil improves. I'm not the most qualified person to speak but maybe you need to compost some hay and not saw dust. Saw dust of treated wood? I wonder how effective wood pulp is for your desired medium.