The nice thing about writing these articles is that I can use them to figure out how to deal with problems in my own yard. In this case, I have a big brush pile out by the shed that’s getting out of control. For years, I’ve been piling all my yard waste there: rose and raspberry clippings, limbs and branches from the white oaks and silver maples, old weeds, and garden waste. All of this and more was hurled into the pile and left to break down.
I like having a brush pile to give rabbits and voles a place to live. Last year, a family of house wrens took up residence there and would scold me every time I ventured into that part of the yard. It was delightful.
Still, the pile has grown to be about 20 feet wide, and I want to use some of that space to grow cherry and peach trees. At the same time, I don’t want to just have it hauled off to the landfill. My yard and garden need this fertility. So, let’s figure out how to deal with a large brush pile.
Jump to:
- 1. Be a Safety-First Kind of Gardener
- 2. Burning the Brush Pile
- 3. Enlist Your Local Firefighters
- 4. Salvage the Wood from Large Trees
- 5. Make Biochar
- 6. Hügelkutur Your Brush
- 7. Mulch!!!
- 8. Leave the Brush Pile for Habitat
- 9. Old Brush Piles Make Valuable Compost
- 10. Create Swales!
- 11. Call a Local Tree Service
- Conclusion
1. Be a Safety-First Kind of Gardener
When approaching or working with the brush pile, always keep your eyes open for safety issues. Some of these methods require using fire or chainsaws. Wear safety equipment when running a saw. Feel free to call the local fire department if you plan to do anything with fire. My cousin, the rural fire chief, said, “It’s better to call us and have it turn out to be nothing, than to not call us and have trouble find you.”
2. Burning the Brush Pile
The problem with large fires is that they can quickly make larger fires. Even if you’re able to contain it, large fires can set alight old tree roots underground, peat where it can burn for a long time – or septic tanks.
Even if you have plenty of water and hoses ready and at hand, brush pile fires can get out of control very quickly. Often, people are unprepared for how high the flames can leap. When the fire burns out, it will leave a huge mass of embers that will keep glowing for days, even if you keep pouring water over them. A strong wind can send the embers flying a long way to start fires elsewhere.
The best time to burn a brush pile is after it’s rained or in early summer when there’s still a lot of rain and lots of green, hard-to-burn material.
3. Enlist Your Local Firefighters
If you plan to burn, contact your local fire department. They can bring out a pumper truck, so if the fire does get out of hand, they can handle it for you. This will save you from having to run all over the prairie with a wet gunny sack and a shovel, trying to beat down all the small fires before they become big fires – and save the fire department from having to spend most of their day off doing the same.
Here are two safer methods for burning a brush pile.
- Dig a long and wide pit, put rocks around the edge, and burn the pile there, a little at a time.
- An alternative is to get an empty and cleaned 55-gallon metal drum. Poke the bottom full of holes – just enough for air to get in but to keep the ash from falling out – and poke in some around the side, too. Stand it up off the ground on some concrete blocks, and make sure there’s nothing underneath it to catch fire. Pile in a bunch of dry brush and burn it. Drench the embers completely when it’s finished burning.
NOTE: Obey local fire ordinances! If there’s a drought going on, don’t burn! Sincerely, your local firefighters.
4. Salvage the Wood from Large Trees
If you have good hardwood trees in your brush pile, like oak, hickory, or walnut, get the chainsaw and make some firewood out of them. If you don’t need firewood, ask around to find one who does. There’s usually somebody with a pickup and a wood stove that’s looking for some dry wood ready for burning. A big oak log can be put in the wood stove to keep the house warm overnight.
Good-quality timber can be sold to a sawmill or can be slabbed. Red oak and red cedar trees, once they’ve been cut and cured, make good posts.
5. Make Biochar
Biochar is a type of highly porous charcoal, rich in carbon, made by burning wood in an enclosed area with very little oxygen.
This was a method used to create fertile soil in the Amazon basin for centuries – the earliest known biochar was made around 450 BC. Terra preta (Portuguese for “black soil”) was the way that Indigenous farmers conditioned their poor-quality soil. Biochar allowed the soil to hold nutrients despite the heavy precipitation that would leach nutrients away and despite the heat that caused the organic material in the soil to rapidly be depleted.
The indigenous use of biochar was so effective that their soil is still black to this day, retaining moisture and rich in nutrients.
One way to make biochar is to dig a cone-shaped hold that’s about 3 feet deep. Fill it with dry wood and plant materials. Add things like dried corn stalks, weeds, and roots. Then, set fire to it. The smoke starts white, then turns yellow, then gray. Keep adding the wood in layers. Once the smoke is gray, cover the burning material with turf or a large piece of wet cardboard topped with soil, leaving a small hole to allow air in and smoke to escape. Then, douse it with water to stop the burning. You’ll need a lot of water. Look out for the steam.
Once it cools, it needs to absorb minerals. One way is to add organic waste like bones, fish scraps, and manure, mix them in, and let it all compost together for a month or two. Or mix the biochar with manure tea or compost tea. Then, add your charcoaled brush pile to your garden.
6. Hügelkutur Your Brush
Make a hügelkultur garden out of your brush pile. Hügelkultur means “mound culture” in German.
Break down the pile as much as possible and stack it in a place where you want to build a raised garden bed. Some gardeners dig a trench for the wood, while some leave the branches on top of the ground and then cover them with soil. Stomp the branches down, add the soil, stomp in the soil so it falls between the sticks, then top it off with a little more soil. Once that’s done, cover everything with a thick layer of mulch to keep weeds from growing up on it.
If you prefer, make a hügelkultur mound directly on top of your brush pile where it’s sitting. Break up the sticks and branches, and stomp on them (carefully so you don’t fall on your face into a pile of thorns) to break them down. Throw on any old leaves or cut weeds or grass for additional nutrients. Then, order a truckload of good soil from a local nursery and have them dump it on top of the brush pile.
Spread the soil so it completely covers the brush pile, and carefully tread it down. Then, cover it with a thick layer of mulch or a tarp to keep weeds from growing up. (Leave openings at the bottom so any little animals living there can get out.)
Over time, the sticks and brush will break down into good compost. The mound will slowly sink as this happens.
Some gardeners say that you can plant directly into the mound after you’ve finished spreading the dirt over it. If the dirt level is thick enough, go ahead. Personally, I would wait a season to allow the soil to settle before planting. The mound should be mulched heavily to keep weeds from sprouting.
Note: Make sure there are no walnut branches or limbs in the pile because they exude chemicals that discourage plants from growing in the soil. Walnut is better used as firewood, anyway.
7. Mulch!!!
Fire up the big wood chipper and make a ton of mulch!! If you don’t have a wood chipper, rent one for a couple of days and spend your time carefully feeding branches and limbs through it.
If you have a tractor with at least 20 HP at the PTO and a really large pile, rent a large chipper with a 3-point hitch and attach it to your tractor’s PTO. A 50+ HP tractor will be able to turn 8-inch logs into chips.
Wood chips make good mulching materials, and when it comes to mulch, you always need more than you think.
8. Leave the Brush Pile for Habitat
Brush piles make great habitat for native species. Some places will give you a reduction in your taxes for having wildlife habitat! If you must remove a brush pile, take it out a little at a time so any animals and birds living there can safely escape.
When brush piles and scrubby areas were more common around my part of Missouri, bobwhite quail were common in the country, and we even had the occasional ring-necked pheasant. I had one fly straight across my windshield in 1992. As brush piles and wild fencerows have vanished, so have these birds, as well as many other birds and wild animals.
Contact your state or federal wildlife agency for help in making wildlife-friendly brush piles. Here, the Missouri Department of Conservation will send a wildlife agent out, free of charge, for a consultation about how to convert your area into a habitat to attract specific wildlife.
9. Old Brush Piles Make Valuable Compost
If you have plenty of land and time, let the brush piles break down on their own and rot. An old brush pile will eventually yield a lot of good, composted soil for the gardens. When wood breaks down, it leaves a grainy compost.
I love gathering the well-rotted wood that has broken down inside a hollow log. When I add it to the soil around my plants, it’s positively magical how they sit up and grow. It’s high in carbon and adds a lot of humus to improve the soil structure.
10. Create Swales!
Permaculturists are all about directing water runoff to its best advantage. If you have a hilly area, use the brush to create swales that capture water runoff, then plant crop trees and plants in this new productive area.
11. Call a Local Tree Service
Other places have businesses that will take care of brush piles for a reasonable fee. Tree services will chip the pile for a larger fee, but then you have good mulch for your plants, and you get to return all those nutrients back to the ground.
Conclusion
If a pile is huge, yes, it can seem like you’ll never get through the whole thing. But you can eat an elephant one piece at a time. Work on little sections at a time, and use several different methods to help you conquer the mess.
With my own brush pile, I’m definitely leaning toward making a hügelkultur mound. (Sorry, German-speaking folks, I realize saying “mound-culture mound” is redundant). I want a bunch of compost, and I want a bunch of new planting space, and I don’t want to set anything on fire! So hügelkultur suits me just fine.
Read more gardening advice from Rosefiend Cordell.
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