Although I have not used sawdust, I foresee only only one drawback. As sawdust decomposes it will use a lot of nitrogen. To keep your crops supplied you will need to apply fertilizer to keep from depleting the nitrogen. It may be a little tricky to determine how much. The amount will vary depending on the stage of decomposition. Being aware of that and keeping an eye out for signs of nitrogen deficiency it should work out OK.

Jim

I find it to be much less than ideal. It is a great addition to compost piles and is a good soil amendment if worked into the soil in the fall in a fallow garden. But as a mulch it has to be really really thich to provide any benefit and also needs to be kept away from the base of the plants.

So many better mulches are available - straw, hay, chopped fall leaves, compost, pine straw, etc.

Check out the Soil, Compost & Mulch forum here for many discussions on both sawdust and mulches in general.

Dave

one of the things to take into account with sawdust is what species of tree it came from,,,,trees that have natural preservative properties perform quite different from a fast growing "weed tree", in our part of the world we avoid cedar, in the softwood group. hardwood sawdust(alder, birch) although near impossible to aquire in any quantitiy breakdown the best. we have had some promising results this year growing cabbage, broc, and caully through cardboard covered with a thin layer of sawdust, good weed supression. it worked well for onion sets also.....as previously mentioned, future manure will be required limestone and or oyster should probably help out depending on your next crops.

When my dad was alive, he was an avid amateur woodworker and generated vast quantities of sawdust and wood shavings, which made fabulous mulch for blueberries, trees, etc. As stated above, it does suck the nitrogen from the soil TEMPORARILY as it decomposes, but then gives it back in the later stages.

You do have to be careful about certain types -- black walnut in quantity, for one, could cause the same type of problems with stunted growth in some plants that using the walnut leaves or husks would. Also, just to be safe, I would use the sawdust of pressure-treated lumber only on ornamentals, not something you plan to eat.

I used to put a lot of sawdust and shavings on my Stropharia mushroom patch, which really thrived and gave many good mushrooms.

the sawdust is the grinding of a stump ...a massive old poplar tree so its a very fine mix of stump and dirt . It's nice to know it is valuable and beneficial rather than a problem , thanks everyone .