I’ve been clearing out dead locust trees from our cabin yard to allow for the planting of new trees.
These locust trees grow fast and tall and due to root weakness, they start dying and dropping limbs everywhere. Many of these trees are still solid, or at least much of the base and trunks are. I will mill these into large beams for building pavilions on our property’s, and the rest goes to firewood for our outdoor wood boiler.
The worst part of the locust are the male ones that have large thorns. These thorny locust are a real pain, and I mean literally! There are a few options on the large tree stumps. Take the time to dig the stumps out of the ground, then back fill the holes, or cut at ground level and soak the stump with Tordon and this will kill the stump and prevent sprouts from growing and in time the stump will rot.
This locust is real good firewood for my shop and for our outdoor wood boiler. We cut, split and pile it inside our shed and allow it to season for at least 4-6 months and it burns really well. It will burn green as well, but in our boiler, I may mix some green in with seasoned, but never burn all green, due to build up inside the boiler.
Burning Green Wood
When burning green wood, always remember to put your seasoned wood down low, up to half way in your wood box, then put the green wood on top and with all the heat from seasoned wood below, it will help dry out your green wood above, make for cleaner burns, way more heat and more efficient burns in your wood stoves.
When clearing out dead locust trees, it does leave a mess to clean up, but I don’t want the locust trees to continue growing, and trust me, they reproduce quickly if they aren’t removed. And for us, the firewood is needed, plus I can make good use out of the solid portions to mill beams and lumber with, using my TimberKing 2220 sawmill. So for us, it’s a win, win.
Always do your best,
-Mike Pilcher
MPE LLC – Pin Oaks Farm
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