r/composting • u/AlltheBent • Apr 20 '26

Humor Mutha. Fuggin. Chipdrop

I love chipdrop and I wanted to hear others stories about their chipdrops

I started using it 5-6 years ago when I moved into my current home. Got wood chips all over the yard to smother weeds here and there, establish future beds, create a path, and make a stockpile for composting.

Best use by far tho was about 1 foot or so deep pile spread out over parking pad which I used for raised beds for veggies, cut flowers, and natives for seed/propagation. After 1 season of all that breaking down and shrinking some, the year 2 veggies and plants grew explosively! Hands down best season of anything I've grown in raised beds before, it was epic. Looooootta greens and cut material and stuff tho, so I had to figure out my composting setup

Tumblers to rescue while I figured my pile goals out, so having all the wood chips were perfect tumbler fuel. And then while the tumbler did its thing and dripped tumbler juice and shit, wood chips below soaked all that in and I barely noticed!

Fast forward to my pile setup now...made possible by wood chips! Recent 30-40 cubic yard delivery of chips was biggest I've gotten by far, thankfully driver dumped it outta the way at back of lawn/yard. With chips as the base, building a pile with cattlepanel until its about 5' tall, kitchen scraps and wood chips, occasional grass cuttings from lawn but mostly food scraps. I guess I'll turn it eventually once its completely full to the top?

Been kinda fun digging random holes around the yard, burying a full pail of kitchen scraps, then covering with wood chips. squirrels and birds and other critters have left them alone so far, and im probably jinxing myself now, but man its funny looking but older ones have kinda/sorta disappeared and leveled out? Wood chips!

The feeling of shoveling decomposed wood chips, which are basically black gold soil/compost/plant fuel, into raised beds and containers for upcoming spring plantings is so so awesome. Friggin making my own soil feels like magic...but its composting! with wood chips!

okay rant over, sorry, thank you, happy composting friends!

236 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

77 comments sorted by

View all comments

65

u/thegypsiiviking Apr 20 '26

Absolutely love Chip Drop! I’m a huge proponent of it! I don’t get a drop every year but probably every other year and it’s fantastic for the garden, compost, mulching around trees, building up soil in heavy clay where it’s too hard to really grow anything… I just love it!

15

u/510granle Apr 20 '26

Do you worry about the type of wood? Black walnut, tree of heaven, pressure treated wood? Also, I understand that in order to decompose they suck up nitrogen. Do you think your plants are robbed of nitrogen or do you put extra fertilizer down?

8

u/HighColdDesert Apr 20 '26

No, wood chips don't rob your plants of nitrogen if you use it only as a mulch and don't mix it into the soil. The next year, if you have to rake it to the side in order to plant things, you can't help but mix a little in, but it's already half broken down and doesn't seem to be a problem then, either.

I didn't use the chip drop app, I heard the sound of a chipper in my neighborhood and went and asked the guys what they were chipping, and if they were willing. Everything they were chipping is trees that are common in the neighborhood, mostly already growing at my place (and not alelopathic like walnut) so I was happy to take a batch. And the guys were happy to offload it locally and not do a dump run.

-4

u/UnfairRevolution6589 Apr 21 '26

Raw wood chips absolutely WILL rob your plants of nitrogen if you use it as mulch. I have personally experienced that in my younger days. One year I unknowingly put it all over my flower beds thinking "oh how pretty, I like the lighter look"... and NONE of my annuals grew that year. None. My more seasoned gardener friends got a good laugh at my inexperience! It took 2 years for those gardens to become viable again.

5

u/somedumbkid1 Apr 21 '26

Any tree wood is fine. Doesn't matter if it's black walnut or tree of heaven. Just make sure the tree of heaven is actually all chipped up and it's fine.

The nitrogen thing is a myth. It's marginal at best.

1

u/thevioletsage Apr 20 '26

Robbed of nitrogen you say...

1

u/DoeBites Apr 23 '26

You can request to not be given whatever kinds of wood you don’t want, there’s a section on their website when you’re filling out your request for a drop.