We’ve cut down a white spruce for a Christmas tree. Any uses for it around the fruit trees once we’re done with it ? We have apples, pears, plums and chums. We are in southwestern Ontario. Currently winter and everything is dormant. Thanks!
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There are many uses. Chop it up and use it for mulch around the base of the fruit trees. Throw it in a pond for baby fish to hide in. Make a brush pile, which is a safeguard for rabbits and game birds you can eat later. Burn it and add the ash to your garden. There are lots more uses, i will give others a chance to mention some of them. Let me just leave you with the idea that biochar is very useful for long-term soil fertility. Biochar worked miracles on some of my worst soil.
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I feed off the one we get to the livestock. They treat it like a mineral block, and slowly work on stripping it of needles and bark. They greatly prefer fir to spruce, however we couldn’t find a nice fir tree under the power lines this year. Trees under the lines are already under a death sentence, so it’s only beneficial all the way around to use them.
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If you have a stocked pond, we used to throw ours in our pond at our old house for the fish to spawn in. I dont know why my husband doesnt throw ours in our new pond. I think he said there was already enough fallen trees and crap in the new one. You could also cut it up and use it for a hugelkultur raised bed. Sorry, just realized you mentioned specifically using around your fruit trees, which in that case Id also recommend the biochar
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Of course the above only applies to natural real christmas trees. I do not recommend cutting up a fake plastic christmas tree to use as mulch!!!
I have a wood chipper/shreader… that would make some nice mulch out of it.
For a slower process… break or cut it up into smaller pieces and compost it. Cover it with some dirt, compost, food scraps, grass clippings, leaves, etc… and it will eventually make some nice compost.
TNHunter
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More time-consuming than most of the suggestions here, but if you’re willing to dig a pretty long, deep hole, you could bury the whole thing for hugelkultur. Maybe throw some spawn of edible mycorrhizal fungi (like wine cap mushrooms) on top. I’ve done this before with a dead Christmas tree, and I was happy with the results.
Second this. I put my cleared brush, pruned wood, and smaller cleared trees into a huge pile that gets chipped and spread every couple years. Just throw the xmas tree in with that stuff. I don’t have my own chipper, but there’s a local arborist who does it for a reasonable fee.
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