Cheap and earthy

I don't know which thrills me more, the inexpensive nature of this, or the earth friendly aspect. We have multiple stumps in our yard, like over twenty. I had good luck with removing one by building a compost heap over it. It was a very large stump, and after one year, I removed the compost to look at the stump. The stump was over half gone. I built a new compost heap around it, but the septic field builders had to move it, stump and all, with their bull dozer. I wanted to say, "No, drive around it. I'm doing an important experiment!"

So I built three more. I quickly filled them with grass and yard clippings because I was motivated. When I had enough yard waste to start another, I thought it might be fun to document the process, since I rarely see any mention of this on the internet as a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to remove stumps.

I picked this stump, which also had a maverick tree growing out of its side. Mark cut the tree down for me, and we encircled the stump with nine feet of chicken wire that's three feet high. We closed it with plastic ties. Then I filled it with yard waste which I was raking up from an area I reseeded with grass (an upcoming post!)


After twenty minutes of work, here's how it looked. The things it needs now are water and nitrogen. I put in coffee grounds, kitchen waste, and grass clippings mostly. I add water during dry spells, but it stays pretty moist if we get any rain, which we mostly do in New York. The cool part about it is that it just keeps on working except in the dead of winter. We have months of cold, rainy weather as well as summer, and by being insulated with wet, nitrogen-rich stuff, the stump is disappearing a bit every day. Even if I completely ignore it, my stump will quickly disappear.

One caveat, that's not really a negative thing, though. If you are looking to make nutrient rich compost for your garden, this is not the fast way to do it. The drain on the nitrogen that comes from the stump decomposition makes the rest of the compost decompose very slowly. When I unearthed my first stump, the stump was decimated, but the year old compost was not ready for the garden. I think of them as two different processes.

My prediction? In two years, the stumps will be gone completely!