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CharlieK
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pine needles?

I looked over the page and didn't find anything about pine needles. I have plenty of them. Do they qualify as "Browns" (carbon) or will they cause pH or other problems? Thanks in advance!

cynthia_h
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Sometimes people make special compost piles for acid-loving plants (azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, blueberries, for example). Pine needles are GREAT in these special piles.

I'd just count them as "other" due to the acidic component. I'm sure others will differ, but it's actually not anything I've dealt with due to severe lack of pines (Pinus spp.) in the neighborhood.

Cynthia H.
USDA Zone 9, Sunset Zone 17

Charlie MV
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What Cynthia said. In addition,I gave up on using pine needles for regular compost because I chased down a suggestion from Opabenia and discovered that it was suggested that pine needles be shredded for the compost pile. I couldn't figure out how the devil to shred a pine needle :) My azaleas love them though

opabinia51
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Meaning that you could run over them with the mower to break them up a bit more. Or if you have a mulching machine you can just run them through there.

I read once somewhere that pine needles are not that acidic and that it's actually an allelopathic chemical that inhibits that growth of associated plants.

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CharlieK
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Okay. I can't avoid a small amount when I harvest my grass clippings but I will be careful not to get carried away. We do have azaleas that we planted this year. It makes pretty good mulch for some plants as well. I have no trouble giving them away as long as I rake them up, LOL! Thanks, guys!

Tomatah-Luver
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According to a composting class I took, 10% of your pile can be pineedles, and they are considered carbon (brown). Carbon-rich materials tend to be dry and brown. If you want to use lots of needles + pinecones, chopping them up is best, and you need to add lots of nitrogen (green) stuff, and it has to be a slow pile.

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hendi_alex
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IMO pine needles would be better to used as a top layer mulch and simply allowed to break down in that mulch location. I would shy from using pine needles as a mulch in the garden however as they seem to carry things like bacterial or wilt disease. Might be a reason to keep them out of the compost pile as well. Could just be a false association on my part, but on several occasions have seen tomatoes wilt within a day or two of having pine needles used as a mulch. Hay is likely a better much choice for the vegetable garden.
Last edited by hendi_alex on Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tomatah-Luver
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Thx hendi-alex on the info on mulching tom's with pine needles--I'll keep that one in my compost notes. You may want to post this comment on the "tomato" board, it could be useful to others.

petalfuzz
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I put pine needles in my compost pile and it seems they have broken down nicely (slow pile). If they are at all acidic, it would be fine for me as I've got clay (and alkaline) soil.

herchelle
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No, no, no...I do not mean to put my guinera pig in my compost container, but when I clean out his cage, all the wood shavings (pine or aspen) as well as his droppings go int o the compost pile. Can I just spread the shavings on top of my beds for fall dressings or should they rot a bit? Any ideas would be very welcome.

cynthia_h
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Just on general principles AND based on my experience this year with rabbit waste, I would say...

compost the stuff first.

Supposedly, rabbit poo can be added directly to the soil without composting. However, I received poo + litter + timothy hay. Some of the litter and most of the hay was still intact after 4 to 6 months in my compost bin when I turned everything in early August. :x

The rabbit mixture that I added directly to my cement-block Square Foot Garden sprouted mushrooms for about four or five months. It's only been the last two or three weeks that I've not had to pull mushrooms out of the veggies the morning after watering it. I mean, those suckers were four inches tall overnight!

So...EVERYTHING will be composted, except the wood chips from the city bin which I use in the roses.

FWIW; YMMV.

Cynthia H.
USDA Zone 9, Sunset Zone 17

rot
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..
I understand that composting mitigates acidity so pine needles in a pile should be no big deal as long as you don't violate the ten percent rule.

Pine needles are slow to break down so anything to break them open will facilitate the process. My rule of thumb: anything run through the mower is all good.

I will have to empty my rabbit sheet in my cold bins because mushrooms speed up the slow, less energy, cold process and kill pathogens in general. Mushrooms work for me - the more the merrier.

let's rot
..



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