Composting Pine Needles Quickly

Mulch them with pine straw they love it i rake my pinestraw to piles let them sit over winter and then run them thru the chipper.

Composting pine needles quickly. One advantage to composting pine needles is that they don t compact. Mix the pine needles with the leaves if they are chopped they decompose faster and one way to chop them is to run over them with the lawn mower and they will decompose faster. The pine needles you want to compost are the ones fallen off the trees right.

The short answer is yes but within limits. Once the pine needles are moist the next step is to include some horse manure into the mix. Your plants will thank you as you are adding space to grow nutrients to support photosynthesis and oxygen to breath.

Make a mound of pine needles and run over them with a lawn mower several times to chop them. A recommended level for pine needles in a compost heap is no more than 10. Pine needles decompose very slowly and should be mixed with a good variety of other composting material for best results.

The smaller they are the faster they will decompose. This keeps the pile open so that air can flow through and the result is a hotter compost pile that breaks down more quickly. I m adding them to my compost to carbon cool the pile down and to bump up the acidity.

Whether or not to use pine needles in your compost is a bit of a prickly question. They ll automatically form a layer of natural mulch around the tree beginning a few inches from the trunk and extending all the way to the tree s drip line. The simplest and most natural way to compost pine needles is simply to leave them where they fall at the base of the tree.

The pine needles break down more slowly than other organic matter in a compost pile even when the pile is hot so limit them. Pine needles shouldn t be more than 10 of the materials in your compost bin. A big pile of chipped fresh green pine tops compost quickly brown and dry needles don t do you grow blueberries or azaleas.