Box elder safe to use?

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Good to hear that you doing a little gardening too!

I do not know how many years you have been growing different varieties of peppers, but a little hint. If you are growing the "hot" type, make sure they are not in the same vacinity as your other "not hot types". Sometimes the hot ones cross pollenate with the others and you get a lot of "hots!"

We have had great luck with the regular "pima", small green peppers. The plants produce a huge number of peppers and continue through the summer. The ones that they call "paprica" here, the bell (yellow, orange, red) varieties seem to grow well--but if you wait for them to change color, many times they get soft or rotten spots right as the color change is complete.

We have herbs growing in our greenhouse most of the year!

[Laurentius]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

I only grows the hot ones. I been to those BBQs, when suddenly you hear the groans of death, where someone has just eaten a hot surprise. Yesterday the heads of my Jalapenos greeted the sun, now they are ready for my TLC.

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

So you are growing from seed? We usually get ours from agriculture center. My wife uses them for stir fry vegetables--but you are supposed to take them out before serving OR put them with your oil for seasoned oil. I like the flavor but don't like the burning surprise when I chomp down on one along with some snow peas and tiger shrimp.

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

This is a question for wood gatherers about microorganisms in logs and if you can do something to stop the decay process safely.

I mentioned before cutting up a tree that was horizontal for about 3 years and had outer rot. This morning, I started splitting the wood and there was mold growing in some of the saw cuts from before (2 wks) ago. Most of the wood is rock hard that I kept, but now I worry a little about the organisms continuing to grow even if it is cut and split--maybe just giving them more surface area to spread.

Other thought, when split--the water will have a chance to get out more freely and the environment for mold growth will disappear.

Third thought, this wood is still mostly wet--so I was thinking of preparing a big pail of water with bleach in it--then immerse the split wood into the solution before putting it into the wood pile for drying. Anything in the bleach should disappear over the 2 year drying period--but maybe this routine might kill the organisms before they have a chance to destroy the whole batch of wood.

I am beginning to see that the WFO is a hungry consumer of firewood..making hunting/gathering of prime wood an even more important part of this hobby.

I need the input from someone good with microorganisms---must be one in this learned group!

Maybe this should be a new thread???

[Laurentius]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Hi Mikku,

Living in Japan its really a problem. I wouldn't go the bleach route, I allow the wood with microorganisms to air dry for a few months, and every time I finish using the oven I place some of that wood in it to dry, which kills the growth.

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Hello Laurentius,
Just looking for a way to keep my pile of wood from being a pile of rotten wood.
It will be split a lot smaller than I regularly do--hope that the sunlight and air do the trick, but dipping in a bucket of lightly bleached water might kill the microorganism first?

Still have to split the pile of blocks-then can decide

[silvfox]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Mikku,
Laurentius is right, forget the bleach. If you get your wood into protected storage and eliminate the water source you will stop the progression of decay oganisms with the exception of some insects such as powder post beetles if you have them. Spliting the wood will greatly accelerate the drying process as will heat in a warm oven. If you plan to store your wood in a building and your concerned about the insects that might be stowaways coming in with your wood, preheating in your WFO is a good precaution.
Inhalation of the dust from dryed fungus in some woods carrys a potential risk to your lungs.
John

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

i have a covered storage area for my firewood, it is built from 50mm pipe that is common over here --used for scaffolding and also back-up material for concrete forms. There are special p-cone's and snap ties, then a course screw thread that anchors the 2" pipe to be use as walers on concrete work. Anyway, the pipe is common, plentiful, cheap---that is what I built my wood storage from.

Oak is used here as a growing media for mushroom. They drill holes into the logs to get the mushrooms growing. The logs that I cut up, had mushrooms growing on the bark and veins going into the wood. This bark was removed as well as punk wood. Such a shame that this wood was left for so long! I don't know what people are thinking. A once mighty tree felled for some stupid reason, then just left to rot.

Two weeks after cutting blocks from these logs and romoving the bark, I had some kind of mushroom growing on these blocks. That is what I wanted to kill.
I split the blocks into small usable pieces--took all day today. My worry was that in a two week period, mushrooms were growing again--the spores must have been present in deeper areas of the wood. I worry that dry stacking alone might not be enough to stop this---that is why the question about bleach and any ill affects.

Bleach is used in our drinking water, swimming pools, water used for cooking--all yes in small quantities. I thought that the bleach might give me a window to prevent growth--while the wood air dried. Also common for disinfecting wooden cutting blocks- meat preparation areas etc. so the idea was--in my mind a safe attempt! My worry was --would any residual chlorine damage my oven OR be unhealthy to me.

[silvfox]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Oak is used to grow Shiitake mushrooms. If that is what you have or some other edible species you may want to enjoy the harvest. Edible fungi have a much higher value per pound than firewood. Someone with more chemistry knowledge than I will need to sign off on the potential for clorine transfer to food from burning dipped wood but I highly doubt it.

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Hi Silverfox,
I know all about shitaki mushrooms and oak as a growing media.
Trouble with growing them here is cesium contamination from the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Plant melt down in 3/11/2011. All the growers here get their growing media from other areas in Japan OR they are using a manufactured media (like OSB) that is just an example. But it is suitable for growing mushroom indoors.

Normally all kinds of mushrooms are grown in wooded areas under the tree canopies, but that is impossible now and for maybe another 30 years. so the growers must do it indoors (inside poly tunnels) that are darkened with special sheathing. There are alerts by local authorities not to eat wild mushrooms of any type--they absorb cesium at a rate 10 times greater than other forms of growth. We also have problems with the bamboo sprouts. they have been great for eating--now too dangerous.

What is said in the press about the nuclear plants--is that they are stable. But they really are not. They are keeping the cooling rods covered with water right now, but there is still daily emmissions of cesium into the atmosphere, and the tanks that are holding cooling water (huge on top of ground tanks--rubber lined) are leaking contaminated water into the aquafor and Pacific ocean! the power company "Tepco" doesn't have the resources to handle this problem and the politicians are white washing the problem.

We live here --cannot see the radiation--but it is there, and do not know how it will affect us... If it damages me in 30 years...Who cares, I'll be dead. But there is a generation of youth who will have to deal with radiation related sicknesses. People around the world should re-think the safety of nuclear generation of electricity. It is neither safe or cheap in the long run!

Sorry for the windy reply--but that is me! Big wind no substance.

Minnesota has problems with Dutch Elm disease, and you think that pre-heat drying in a WFO would eliminate that as a hazard as well---but you cannot pre-dry everything...just don't have the time. We had another pest up north while I was living on the Iron Range that affected the Balsam fir trees--the insect would eat only the new growth on the Balsam trees. But that was enough to kill off huge stands of these trees. This wood was great for house building (local lumber) for studs--Straight and light weight.

I love cutting and splitting wood--fun just like watching an active flame--but I hate to see good work and good wood go to waste.

Heard that southern minnesota should be in the 90's this week! Wonder if the ice will be off Lake Vermillion for fishing opener? Or was that this week-end...Mother's Day and Opener.... Crappy choice, honor your mother or wife or go fishing!

Always like hearing from home!

[silvfox]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Mikku,
Sorry to hear about your radiation problems. Sounds like a long term problems with wide ranging effects. We are still cutting the dead elms here and now we have ash borer. Ash trees where suggested to replace the elms. Now municipalities are proactively cutting healthy trees to try and stay ahead of the problem. Yes, we may hit 90 this week but its been a cold late spring. Morrel mushrooms just starting to pop.

[mikku]

Re: Box elder safe to use?

Yes the radiation is all around, but very few people talk about it anymore. Food safety is an issue that can be controlled. Nothing else can.

They say-"sho ga nai"- meaning cannot be helped! And "gammon" just persevere - tough it out! It is invisible and easily to forget about!

Are there any flooding problems yet from the heavy snows this winter?