Just as an example of how valuable sawdust and other organic material can
be, sawdust was used (dozens of tons of it) in conjunction with sand and
human waste to help bioremediate a truly scary landscape, that being the
former Seattle Gas Works, now the lovely Gas Works Park.

Several weeks ago I listened to the principal designer of that park, Richard
Haag, give a talk about the site. The 'soil', if you can call it that, was
simply industrial waste piled 5-10 feet thick in places-- 'Industrial
Afterbirth', he calls it (while acknowledging the melodrama of such a
label). In the mid to late 1970's Mr. Haag oversaw the beginning steps to
remediating that horrorshow, first by introducing bacteria that would start
to heal the space and second by slowly, over time, increasing the soil's
fertility. The initial steps were the laying of tons of sawdust from nearby
lumber mills, tons of human sewage, and also tons of sand, all of which was
turned into the space as deeply as possible (think 'double digging', but
with bulldozers).

A good history of the space can be read at
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/park173.shtml

Dave

"Beecrofter" wrote in message
m...
"kyrustic" wrote in message
...
I have access to tons of very old saw dust. Would it be ok to work this
into
my garden? What uses would it have

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Kentucky Rustic Barrels
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It would be a fair mulch. It would be an awesome ingrediant in
composting things like fish wastes dead animals and chicken manure.
Worked into the soil it would provide organic material (mostly carbon)
but you would need to provide some supplemental nitrogen to the crop.

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 16:16:26 GMT, "David J Bockman"
wrote:

Just as an example of how valuable sawdust and other organic material can
be, sawdust was used (dozens of tons of it) in conjunction with sand and
human waste to help bioremediate a truly scary landscape, that being the
former Seattle Gas Works, now the lovely Gas Works Park.

Several weeks ago I listened to the principal designer of that park, Richard
Haag, give a talk about the site. The 'soil', if you can call it that, was
simply industrial waste piled 5-10 feet thick in places-- 'Industrial
Afterbirth', he calls it (while acknowledging the melodrama of such a
label). In the mid to late 1970's Mr. Haag oversaw the beginning steps to
remediating that horrorshow, first by introducing bacteria that would start
to heal the space and second by slowly, over time, increasing the soil's
fertility. The initial steps were the laying of tons of sawdust from nearby
lumber mills, tons of human sewage, and also tons of sand, all of which was
turned into the space as deeply as possible (think 'double digging', but
with bulldozers).

A good history of the space can be read at
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/park173.shtml

Dave

"Beecrofter" wrote in message
om...
"kyrustic" wrote in message
.. .
I have access to tons of very old saw dust. Would it be ok to work this
into
my garden? What uses would it have

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Support American Families, Buy Made In USA!
Kentucky Rustic Barrels
http://www.KentuckyRustic.com

It would be a fair mulch. It would be an awesome ingrediant in
composting things like fish wastes dead animals and chicken manure.
Worked into the soil it would provide organic material (mostly carbon)
but you would need to provide some supplemental nitrogen to the crop.


Howdy,

There are advantages, but adding sawdust will (radically) deplete the
area of nitrogen...

HTH,

--
Kenneth

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