How to compost Pine Needles, composting pine needles to create soilfor Raised Garden Bed & Contain Gardening to break down to create compost for gardening and to save on potting soil. Can be added to bottom of container gardening to help save on potting soil, and to add bulk for raised beds to grow plants and food in. Good cheap filler for large container gardens and for large raised beds when soil can be in short supply.
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22 Comments
Thanks for sharing 🤩 I just started using pine needles this year and this is very informative.
I bought a mulcher last year.. I make a mulch with three ingredients… leaves, pine needles and the shavings with the rabbit poop from our rabbit trays
I have a special set of mulching blades on my mower (6) blades that rip the pine needles in small chunks… going to mulch these for now on.
Thank you. I have tons of pine needles at my new home and was wondering if they could go into my compost bin. Looks like I have a lot of work to do this week.
Good
I put my pine needles in the wood chipper and needles are so soft and smell so good! I think I might use them for bedding. Hoping to get hens soon.
So helpful! Thank you:)
I live in Georgia and the pine needles that we get break down way too fast to use for mulch. We have been using it for 20 years and are NOT fans. It is SO expensive to mulch our entire yard with them, (like 1K every time) and then they only last for a few months before we need more. You have to be careful when buying, because you may be getting pine straw that's been sitting in bales for years. We have plenty of weeds with pine straw as wll. Looking for an alternative.
So fun! Thank you
I have used pine needles a few times over the years with no problems.. I have been using clean green grass clippings since 1979. I never needed fertilizers. When it turns brown it looks nice and neat on my plants.
Thank you for this insightful and well thought out video! We purchased our new home at the end of summer last year, and I really want to start my first flower garden in my front yard. My back yard doesn’t even grown grass because there is so many pine trees and the pine needles are a constant blanket on the ground. I was hoping I could make some use of those needles!
What about the wax? Will the wax build up?
Thanks We have tons of pine needles.
designed 😉
I have massive pines in my yard., last year there was a shortage of straw mulch and mulch in general. I had to get inventive quick… I ended up collecting tons of leaves and laying those down over the garden beds, then taking wheel barrows of pine needles and covering the leaves with a thick blanket of pine needles.
This spring, I just had to take the needles to the side and start planting. Very few weeds.
I am also going to try this idea of cutting the needles and adding it to mulch and soil., I may see if a paper shredder would work. 😜
Nature is a beauty thing.
Oh boy this is very helpful for me. My husband and I moved out into the woods to build our cabin and used pine needles for mulch but I’ve wondered how they compare to wood chips. What a difference! Now I know what to do when I try to use it in my compost. Excellent information. Thanks! I’m completely surrounded by pine trees so I really wanted to use this very abundant resource of mine for something! We do have a chipper for the branches and such but those chips are huge, more like shreds. 😏 As for the needles, Maybe if I go over some with the mower that might work to use the needles better. 🤔You definitely got me thinking with this video! 👍🏻Thank you!
I’ll defo try your method as my house is surrounded by pine needles! Thank you !!!
Is fresh spruce mulch ok for gardens or is it too acidity
wish i found this vid 2 months ago. I can testify that pine needles are much harder to compost. I needed mor bulk for a small compost heap i had and knew i could get a ton of pine needles. I added like 4 55 gallon bags of the stuff with whatever greens i could scrap up and added a whole 5 lb bag of blood meal. 3 days later the hottest the pile would get was about 130-140 F. I'm sure if i did what i did with just leaves i would have been looking at higher temps. I really needed some compost for 2 new beds i was making up as the "soil" where i live is dead and sandy but it's been 2 months and only thing that's happening is the pine needles are slowly cooling down. and to further prove how much of a pain they are to compost i resorted to using urea as a green source to try break it down faster. The compost can't be considered organic anymore but i really wanted that compost……..the urea didn't do much and i went crazy with the stuff, adding about 2 pounds or so. To anyone thinking about using pine needles, take what this vid says to heart. I won't go so far as to say they never break down, but they will take a LONG time. I'm sure my pile will break down at some point………in a year or so, but hay at least fungi seem to like it, never seen a mushroom bloom like i saw a few days a go. came back to the heap to see about half of it with tons of mushroom caps so i guess that's kind of a good thing>_>.
Thanks so much! I will be cutting up some pine needles. We have lots!
Clemson extension recommends mulching pine needles in with the mower to keep the lawn healthy versus raking them.