What to do with a pile of branches?
imgur.com/a/8f8raPosted Mar 20, 2017, 5:17 PM UTC
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It's too much trouble imho to chop them down. What you can try instead is a hugelbeet https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/19/74/e0/1974e06ac7abe85bdc9699a286ec2ccf.jpg Just dig a rectangular shape (4 feet X 8 feet) by the looks of it and 4-5 inches deep, stack the wood in the bottom. Then add layers of soil, leaves, kitchen scraps, manure if you can find it. After a few layers add a final layer of fine soil and you have a hugelbeet, a vertical structure that can be cultivated The wood in the bottom will absorb water and nutrients.
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Make a hugelculture bed, burn them in a rocket stove, bon fire, spread them out and let them rot over time.
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Use them as a trellis for vining plants. Either the entire pile or just grab a few strong branches and stick them upright in the ground. A maypop vine would grow completely cover it in a month or two. Or have a few butternut squash "trees" as long as they are strong enough.
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Chop and drop, feed the chopped material to the trees you want to grow. This is one of permacultures most simple and effective techniques, I am surprised that it has not been mentioned yet. Although there are quite a few other good ideas.
The closer the branches can be to touching the soil, the sooner the mushrooms will be able to eat them.
"A forest feeds on a dying forest" or something like that. Feed old material to the trees.
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I'm just wondering if chopping these branches is going to take an extraordinary amount of time (the picture only represents a very small sample of the amount of branches I have available)
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Use is much time as your are comfortable with. When it is not fun, stop and do something else.
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I wish I could chip these for use as mulch, but breaking them down so they would fit in the chipper would take an extraordinary amount of time. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, any ideas?
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Bury them in a hugelkultur.
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It would actually be cheaper to get free wood chips delivered to your place rather than chipping it yourself. Tree trimming companies are always looking for places to dump their wood chips for free.
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more concerned with content & quality than economics
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is your soil acidic? i would burn them
edit: if you don't have the patience to wait after fungus, if you have time just leave it there :P
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They can make good habitats for all sorts of small animals. I need to do hazard reduction around my place annually and I leave a few big piles around the outskirts of my property. Could be an option if you have the space.
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Bonfire!
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is this far from your residence? i love branches in compost piles for air pockets as well adding a fungal component.
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is this far from your residence?
yes, is that something to consider?
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well, i'm just saying you won't have readily access to green material. then, i'll just 2nd everyone elses' advice for a hugel.
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I don't understand..but will look into the hugel!
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HUGEL!
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We have these all over. We usually leave them for towhees and such to nest in.
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Maybe try making bio char with it the old fashioned way. Dig a hole, put the branches in, get a good fire on and then bury so it still smoulders and burns without oxygen. When you uncover it after it has burned, you should have good biochar for spreading. I haven't done it yet myself but I plan on trying it this year. The problem is I want to be able to monitor the pile 24/7 since even buried smouldering wood scares me.
But the simplest thing to do is burn them and then spread the ashes and char that is left behind. A good excuse for a bonfire with beer and marshmallows with the family! Not to mention spider wieners!
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Making charcoal is my suggestion as well. It takes time, but it's fun. Charcoal is the best thing to use in a humanure setup if you do that. Otherwise I add it to my compost piles. Nutrients will get caught in the charcoal's carbon matrix and will remain accessible to plants for years rather than washing away when it rains.
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Humanure? You really have to elaborate on this one! Does it actually safely utilize human waste, one of our biggest loss of nutrients?
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If you haven't already looked into it, humanure is simply composting human waste. There are many compost toilets ranging in price. I prefer the simple bucket method. The Humanure Handbook is a must read.
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Thank you! Definitely something I'd love to learn about!
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Will the ashes cause hyper alkaline soil?
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We have acidic soil in my region so it shouldn't hurt in smaller amounts. Just more reason to have regular soil tests done.
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Why not just leave it? Animals love brush piles.
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I'd rather use it to benefit myself or plants ;)
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I get that.
Close to my house I just dump stuff in a burn pile and in my woods I just leave piles for the critters. I wish I had a chipper. Maybe someday I'll get one to tow behind the tractor.
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Growing food on it would do both. Hugel that crap!
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Wouldn't lots of brush piles end up being a huge fire hazard? Assuming the brush piles are left in a forested area, you're basically just building piles of kindling.
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I guess so. Depends on the area of the country maybe?
My forest is managed and was logged out 2 years ago. This left the forest floor with like 2 feet of slash. So so much fuel all over that it's very hard to even walk. But the critters love it and it's adding tons of nutrients as it breaks down. But my land is very wet, tons of springs bubble water up everywhere.
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My forest is managed and was logged out 2 years ago. This left the forest floor with like 2 feet of slash. So so much fuel all over that it's very hard to even walk.
Sounds like a tinder box.
But my land is very wet, tons of springs bubble water up everywhere.
Sounds like promising land. I'm not sure that would prevent the possibility of fires starting, though, and telling people to make brush piles in a forest is probably not a great idea if you don't know what part of the country they live in. Telling a California, Colorado, Texas, etc person to do that could result in tragic consequences.
I apologize for getting on your case about it, btw. I just wanted to put a disclaimer out there for people to think about fire safety when considering placing brush piles on their property. At the very least, I'd keep them away from the bases of trees.
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Nah I totally get that. It really does depend on local conditions.
But do people in fire prone areas really groom their land to the degree that a pile of brush is going to be the deciding factor to losing it in a fire? Shit, if a 70' pine tree falls down on your land thats a lot of fuel just drying out on the forest floor, shit i've got dozens of them down around my house. But that's a lot of time and money to chop up a tree that big and send it off for pulp milling or whatever.
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No one's mentioned rabbits. Rabbits hide and burrow under piles like that. Birds perch there. Just leave the pile there.
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What effect do rabbits and birds have on permaculture. Won't they eat crops?
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They make fertilizer and reduce insect pressure.
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Great point for sure
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In a sea of people yelling "HUUUUGGGEEEL" I have to suggest this is a better use: Use it as a barrier to prevent the ingress of deer. This video from Edible Acres is lengthy, but worth a view.
It may be not a viable option if this is all the slash you have, but I found Edible Acres' technique to be a novel stacking of functions for waste material.
wow this may be exactly the perfect solution
That concept blew my mind when I first saw it. I too will have mountains of slash and no desire to set thousands of fence posts. So glad I could contribute to your place. Good luck!
I will have mountains of the stuff. Making a barrier sounds like a very viable idea!!
I was going to yell the same thing! HUGELKULTURE beds are the ish. Make sure you have no toxic plant mats and you'll be good.
Hugel is great- works a charm, mimics a forest, stacks functions, reuses waste -but when someone tells you they aren't prepared for the work of limbing a pile of slash for chipping, "k, just dig an eight foot trench" is a pretty bad suggestion.
Well, you'd usually hire a chipper, which can be in and of itself a hassle. But it appears as though this is from work they themselves already have done, if the trench was already dug, the work is now just throwing them in the trench and mounding them.