Cedar shavings in compost.

Has anybody used cedar shavings in compost or as a soil additive? I have plenty but thought they will not break down well as they are rot resistant. On the other hand, perhaps they will retain moisture like vermiculite until they break down. Any thoughts?
Thanks, Ken

Cedar Chips work very well for mulch as long as they are not worked into the soil - just kept on top of the soil as a mulch. They will help retain moisture in the soil by decreasing evaporation.  The Eastern Red Cedar is an invasive plant here, and they work great for cutting off at ground level and running through the shredder/chipper. Those chips are then put on our flower gardens. It takes 3 or 4 years for the chips to break down and decompose on the ground.  I have not used them in the vegetable gardens for the sole reason that they would have to be raked off before I could do any planting or maintenance on the bed, and then re-applied after done with the bed.

Thanks for your response. My cedar is either sawdust or shavings from a jointer or chain saw so the size is like the shredded coconut put on a cake. Would you consider using that size into the soil or compost? If not why not? 
Thanks, Ken.

The shavings are from the cedar used for fencing.

If they are shavings, and not chips, they may be too small to use for a garden mulch. Fine wood shavings and saw dust will pack too dense to allow water through them to keep the garden watered. If that is the case, I would use them in the walkways around the beds instead of on the beds.

OhioGardener wrote: The Eastern Red Cedar is an invasive plant here,

Hi OhioGardener,

Are we talking the same Eastern Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana because it is native to 37 states and The Ohio Department of Natural Resources doesn't list it as being invasive.

http://forestry.ohiodnr.gov/redcedar

Dan in Ct wrote:

OhioGardener wrote: The Eastern Red Cedar is an invasive plant here,

Hi OhioGardener,

Are we talking the same Eastern Red Cedar, Juniperus virginiana because it is native to 37 states and The Ohio Department of Natural Resources doesn't list it as being invasive.

http://forestry.ohiodnr.gov/redcedar

Probably the same tree, don't know, but farmers here in the southern part of Ohio have a Love-Hate Relationship with it. Anyone who raises cattle, as we used to, hates it because it takes over pastures as birds spread the seeds. But, subdivision homeowners love it for windbreaks, and create a lot of seeds for birds to spread in open land. The good thing about the tree is that if it is mowed off when it is young it will not regrow. That means that cattle farmers have to bush hog their pastures a couple times a year to keep it under control.  The state nursery used to include it in the windbreak package, along with another invasive plant, the Russian Olive, but they no longer include either.

Here they use Juniperus horizontalis, sometimes called Creeping Cedar for slopes in the residential landscapes, so they stay green and need very little maintenance especially near roads where in the winter salts are used. The same reason Russian Olive and Autumn Olive were originally planted, those two are very aggressive invasives and the Russian Olive can have some serious thorns to deal with. Creeping Cedar will spread. It is amazing how many invasives were originally used for erosion control. I don't even know if dairies, pasture cows any more in Ct. Most are just kept under roof, sad but keeps the quality of the milk constant.

So no ideas using cedar shavings in composting?

ktomchik wrote:So no ideas using cedar shavings in composting?

There would be no problem is composting them, other than the long period of time it would take them to break down.  I have composted all types of wood chips, including Black Walnut and Red Cedar, and never had a problem.  It takes 2 or 3 years to get a pile of wood chips to compost down, and they are a bear to turn.

Hi kTom,  Welcome to the Forum from California!  

Regarding the cedar wood shavings and saw dust, please don't put them in the veggie garden.  Wood ties up nitrogen while it slowly decomposes over the months and years.  It is fine to add them as one ingredient in a compost pile, one that will not be needed for quite a while.  Composts should be made from a variety of waste products, like old produce and kitchen trimmings, farm manure, fall leaves, spent coffee grounds, old bedding straw and hay, sea weed, etc. in order to provide a balanced nutrition for the veggies.  Even if you have other compost bins, you may want to have one that is specially for adding the shavings and saw dust so they don't have to go to the green waste.

. . .

Okay, rethinking what I wrote.  I know cedar fencing breaks down when in contact with wet dirt.  If your wood waste is no larger that shredded coconut, it should break down faster than wood chips in a blended compost pile.  Maybe sprinkle in a little blood meal for extra nitrogen. ??  I bought a great compost once that was made from waste products of tomato processing with rice hulls, and sawdust with ammonium nitrate.

I am going to agree with Kelejan and OhioGardener, as a mulch or an ingredient added to an active compost pile, no problem. With hot composting you would probably have to add additional nitrogen in accordance to the carbon to nitrogen ratio. Any ingredient changes its value or quality when added as an ingredient in composting, used as a mulch or used as a soil amendment similar to using a screwdriver, to chisel, scrape or pound nails, much better at performing some tasks than others and then not good at all. Although there are changes in pH while things are composting, for the most part when finished most end up close to neutral. The natural pH of rain, 5.6 and the soil's geology has much to do with the soil's pH. Plants also have the ability to change the pH in their root ball area. Plants are not as helpless as we were once lead to believe. It is just as gardeners we want to grow them where we want to grow them without sometimes giving them a home field advantage. Weeds only come out to play when they know they have the advantage or we have unknowingly given it to them.