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J blue

Free dirt! 🧵

TL;DR
-sign up for chip drop
-after delivery, acquire fruit peels from shake/juice venues
-spread peels evenly
-layer chips on top
-takes 4-5 months to decompose completely
-not organic

Real estate companies often scrape the top soil off of properties to sell to landscaping/gardening companies who then resell it at garden stores. It’s such a scam and should be illegal.

The pics in the top post are from where I live. The soil is just clay. The second pic is an area that had identical soil but had two cycles of mass composting. It’s in an area with a soil guard about 20ft away from first pic.

If you are doing this in the fall/early winter, the soil will be ready for planting in the late spring.

Chip drop is an American network but if you live outside the US, you can call your local arborists and see if they may offer you the same opportunity.

The biological refuse from grocery stores and juice/shake venues is unlikely to be organic.

This method is if you have a large area of ground that needs better top soil and cannot afford to purchase it.

princeton.edu/news/2017/08/22/

Princeton UniversityOrange is the new green: How orange peels revived a Costa Rican forestPrinceton researchers explore how discarded orange peels revived a Costa Rican forest.

After the chip drop is delivered, go to grocery stores that press their own orange juice and fruit/shake shacks and ask if you can have their fruit peels.

Most of them are used to this request so you don’t need to feel weird about asking.

Spread peels evenly across the area you want to build more soil and then spread the chips over top.

The only purchase you may want to make is a soil guard/retainer. This is especially true of heavy clay soils where the rain just runs off and doesn’t sink.

It’s best to do this in the fall after the leaves have already fallen since you can use them as compost as well. Just leave the leaves where they lay and follow the instructions.

Sign up for a chip drop delivery.
getchipdrop.com

Arborists produce a lot of refuse and often have to pay to dispose of their waste. Giving it to gardeners makes cheaper for them.

ChipDropFree Wood Chip Mulch from ChipDropHelping gardeners get free mulch. Helping arborists empty their trucks.

@jblue
Urine, coffee grounds and manure are other high nitrogen inputs.

Chips piled up will decompose slowly by themselves.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=eEBBm4AW

A Johnson-Su Bioreactor will make very high quality compost with chips.
regenerationinternational.org/

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m.youtube.com- YouTubeEnjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

@jblue
The usual warnings about chip drop:

Some species are alleopathic. Some chips will have fungicides in them - the last thing to you want to have when trying to build soil.

It's often better to make contacts through chip drop, then deal direct with people you trust to deliver quality chips.

The prunings are a high carbon source, the fruit waste is high nitrogen. Mixing the carbon and nitrogen sources in the right ratio is thermophilic composting. Other methods are possible.
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@jblue
I can't speak to other areas of the UK but in mine the local council will provide mulch and woodchip from felled trees. They provide it through their green space contractors but it's not widely publicised.