"Janice" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 04 Apr 2004 19:06:51 GMT, "David J Bockman"
wrote:

I've read this folk tale several times in the past few weeks. Composted
pine
needles are almost neutral in pH. Thank you, that is all.

Dave

Umm who would compost them first? How about ones picked up off the
forest floor, or under your own trees, and plunked down in the
blueberry patch?

I've seen many references to Oak leaves, and how you shouldn't use
them in your compost bins as it makes the compost too acid. I thought
GREAT when I saw that, and thought where I could find some oak leaves
as I'm WEST of the rockies in the alkaline ground and water world!

I figure pretty much anything that's acid would make good mulch in the
blueberry patch! ;-) Well, not anything, some things would have to
be laced with nitrogen to keep it from robbing it from the soil as it
decomposed.

Properly composted ANYTHING will result in a product that has nearly neutral
pH and you would need an awful lot of uncomposted material like pine needles
to significantly alter soil pH. At the most, uncomposted pine needles or
other acidic debris will slightly modify surface pH, but not substantially.
Oak leaves are perfectly suitable to add to compost - they just tend to take
longer to breakdown due to the amount of tannins they contain. But unless
they are the primary ingredient in your compost, once that process has been
completed, you should still have a nearly neutral product.

pam - gardengal