Topic: Free Wood Chippings

[loopyloulou]

we have then free on the allotment but the old fella opposite pointed out none of the oldies would touch them for anything at all, he said something about wireworm and that doesnt sound good so ive left them be too!! am making paths with thick newspaper weighted down with stones instead, anybody else heard about wireworm??? lou x

[Baccy Man]

I think they may be confusing wireworms & millipedes, lots of people do.
Millipedes can occasionally cause damage to seedlings or make slug damage to strawberries & cucumbers etc... worse. Generally they prefer to eat the decaying woodchips or any other decaying plant material that is around but because people find them in the holes in their strawberries/cucumbers etc... they assume they are responsible & don't realise the slugs caused the damage the millipedes just found the hole in the fruit & thought it would make a good home.
Wireworms on the other hand are the larvae of the click beetle they don't live in woodchips they live in the soil & feed on the roots of your plants so everything dies off & you don't realise why until you dig the plants up only to find all the roots have been eaten. On the plus side they prefer grassland & tend to disappear from cultivated ground fairly quickly.

Sounds like you may have a good supply of woodchips all to yourself.

[loopyloulou]

so as the ground im working on was couch grass b4 it could be full of wireworms anyways??? ooer er, am sure ive seen other bugs in there too....   :'(

[shirlton]

We have only used the chippings in the kids play area. I wouldn't use it on the plot cos I prefer my straw paths .

[Baaaaaaaa]

[Wireworms] prefer grassland & tend to disappear from cultivated ground fairly quickly.

Wireworms definitely like grassland. When one then removes their natural food supply, they eat anything that replaces it, ie. spuds. They either die or move on the greener pastures !

Use mine for mulching the garden in the spring and mulching the plot over winter - just dig 'em in in the spring for water retention as i'm on sandy soil.

( There's nothing like the echo of your own voice !)

I've been using wood chip for mulch for years, I don't suffer from wireworm.  :)