fresh wood chips in "compost mix" - will that hurt

NewatThis · Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Houston Area

We recently made a raised bed garden using cinder blocks as the retaining walls, for a fall vegetable crop. We ordered a compost mix for the soil - it was advertised as 80% compost 20% screened sand. It was dark and appeared good quality mature compost until we watered our newly planted seedings. Most of the dark matter washed down into the mix, exposing tremendous amounts of fresh wood chips and shreds of wood and some white sand.

I was dismayed, and began removing the wood pieces, but this became laborious and I realized that the majority of the mix would be gone if I continued to take out the wood.

My questions - Will the wood eventually decay and create good soil for a vegetable garden? If so, how long will this take and should I add something to the "compost" mix to make it more suitable for the plants growing in it now? Will the plants currently planted in this non-mature "compost" mix be able to thrive? What type of fertilizer to use?

dragonfly · Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:36 pm Post subject:

I did the same thing last year, and will never again buy bulk compost sight unseen. What I do to help compensate is add a high nitrogen fertilizer such as blood meal to help assist in breakdown of the chips and to ensure there is enough for my plants. They will eventually break down, just not as fast as most other "browns" in the compost.

NewatThis · Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Houston Area

Thanks for the info! I actually had some organic dried blood that I spread on the top of the beds yesterday. I will find the blood meal you mentioned and give it a try. Also, as I worked up my herb beds, I transferred many large earthworms to the new raised bed, so hopefully that will help break down the wood.

Is cornmeal high in nitrogen? - perhaps I can use that as well.

dragonfly · Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 8:37 pm Post subject:

I don't know how high in N cornmeal is, but cottonseed meal is fairly high and can be purchased in large quantities fairly inexpensively. I added some cottonseed meal last Fall to the beds that had the woody compost in them and it did seem to help somewhat. Be careful to mix it well, though, because it tends to clump up together and get smelly if kept moist.