Made another big pile of tops a small pile of future mulch thanks to my PTO driven chipper.
View attachment 109123
Gonna make a suggestion, but just remember advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Segregate hardwoods and evergreens when you chip, especially if you plan to use it for mulch/compost. Hardwood will rot a lot quicker and makes a much better compost than it does ground cover. The evergreen (cedar/pine/cypress) is aromatic because of the turpentine in the resins, and will make earthworms and beneficial insects find somewhere else to be, thus slowing down composting, as well as losing the benefit of the aeration the critters do. NEVER use any chips you make for mulch near your house. Commercial mulch is treated for termites. If you put untreated chips in your flower beds, you just created a buffet for termites. Spraying the pile of chips after you finish won't do properly treat them. Every chip has to be coated. Then, again, you don't want to use too much of that for mulch either. It will kill beneficial insects and the earthworms as well. A lot of plants don't like that spray either. We wiped out a LOT of expensive plants one year because of my persistence about using it for ground cover. Now, I just buy cypress blended mulch for beds close to the house, and use the compost/mulch from the chipper on beds at least 50 feet away. I leave the treating to those that have better equipment and know-how.
Keeping a hose handy and spraying the sand/grit off the brush before you feed it to the chipper will make the knives last longer and help keep some of the dust down. Some barks soak up the water very quickly and aren't quite as stringy with a little moisture added. Birch and elm come to mind, and I've had several blockages attributed to stringy bark. I also have a small 6 HP shredder that I use for the stuff that breaks off as I feed the chipper. It has hammer flails, so nothing to dull, and I still get rid of ALL of the trash from deadfall.
/https%3A%2F%2Ftf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ffiler_public%2F63%2Ffb%2F63fbcea3-d74f-4311-9de3-0ba1dc63cffd%2Fcoins.jpg)
www.smithsonianmag.com
I felt like I was riding a mechanical bull or one of those 25 cent rides that we used to see outside the grocery store (do they even have those any more?).
