Sawdust shavings?

[CodyW]

We can get tons of sawdust shavings from a lumber mill, can they be put into a compost? They would be spruce, cedar and possibly hemlock.

[Bobberman]

I like saw dust especially mixed with manure or leaves. It seems to work great for potatoes. It will deplete some nitrogen so side dress with something like blood meal or cotton seed!

[toxcrusadr]

Wood shavings and sawdust = super-brown, like paper, so make sure you have enough greens, and give it plenty of time.

Cedar is generally rot-resistant due to the oils. I tend to use it for mulch of fire-starting rather than compost, but even cedar will break down in the compost.

Great stuff to get, especially if you have an overabundance of greens! And it will store well, either in a pile, or in bags.

[gumbo2176]

I do woodworking as a hobby and to make a little money from time to time and the only shavings or sawdust I won't put in my compost pile is the stuff from treated lumber.

I do, on occasion, make porch swings and outdoor furniture for folks and prefer to use cypress, teak, redwood or cedar but that gets a bit expensive for most folks. They opt for the much cheaper treated wood that I have to let sit in my shop to dry out to prevent shrinkage. If I work in my shop for a day cutting, planing and shaping most anything, I'll create enough shavings and sawdust to fill a large shop vac at the end of the day. For me, treated is useless and goes in the garbage can.

[Gary350]

The local lumber yard where I live has a vacuum system on their saws that sends all the saw dust to a large funnel container on 4 legs about 7 ft off the ground. Anyone that wants free saw dust can back their truck or trailer under it and pull the lever and get a free load. I know a guy that gets a very large pile of saw dust every year. He dumps it in his yard next to several other piles. He says he ages the saw dust 3 years before he puts it on his garden. I looked at what he has and the first pile looks like fresh saw dust the pile it 6 ft deep. Each pile is a little darker and a little smaller. The last pile looks almost black and has composed down to a much smaller pile. He uses the black compose for planting seeds in pots to grow his own garden plants any compose that is left over is tills into the garden.

I know another guy that tills saw dust and Ammonium Nitrate into 1/2 his garden every year. He plants the garden 1/2 that has the 1 year old composed saw dust. The other 1/2 of the garden with fresh saw dust ages until next summer.

I tried using fresh saw dust one year to mulch my tomatoe plants. In about 2 weeks all the plants started turning yellow. The saw dust was taking all the nitrogen out of the soil so I started adding Ammonium Nitrate and water and my yellow plants came back to life in a couple weeks but the plants did not get back to normal until I removed all the fresh saw dust.

[gixxerific]

Yes as others have told you sawdust is great in the compost but DO NOT put it straight on your plants as a side dressing.

[john gault]

Just don't let it clump up, keep mixed up with greens and stuff. Also according to this author it's bad for mulch. https://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda%20chalker-scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Bark%20mulch.pdf

[Binkalette]

I mix sawdust from my husbands shop and wood shavings from the guinea pig with grass clippings and it breaks down just wonderfully!