Bourne Chippy
More Mulch Less Smoke
Our Service
We have a professional wood chippper which we will bring to your finca to turn your prunings to mulch. The chipper is portable, so can be moved around the land (if not too steep.)
It is a fast and efficient way of dealing with your prunings, which is better for the environment, and leaves you with a very useful product for your finca. We are pretty sure you'll want to keep your mulch to use on your land or flower beds, but if you don't want to keep it, we can take it away.
We also come with a chainsaw, so any wood that is too big for the chipper we will cut into wood to be used in your wood burner for next year.
We offer this service year-round, so don't be afraid of pruning/clearing throughout the year - you dont need to have a big pile of debris waiting for the burning season. For more information or general inquiries, get in touch today.
Why Mulch?
Mulch can not only make flower beds more attractive by adding a layer of material over bare soil, it also has several positive benefits, such as making garden maintenance easier while improving the health of your plants. Here are some of the main advantages
Mulching enriches the soil by giving it nutrients. When you lay the mulch over your soil the decaying organic matter provides nutrients to the soil and improves the fertility of the soil. These nutrients feed the plants and organisms living in the planting area covered with mulch
Mulching reduces water loss from the soil. The mulch absorbs water from rainfall and irrigation and slows the evaporation of moisture from the soil. The improved water retention will reduce the amount of water you need to use in irrigation.
Mulching suppresses weed growth. Mulch prevents sunlight from reaching germinating weeds, and provides heat so they aren't able to grow. When weed seeds land on top of mulch, they aren't able to root themselves deeply into the soil, so even if they grow they are easier to remove.
It controls or prevents soil erosion from taking place. Mulching helps in a significant way to reduce erosion of the top soil. It does this by protecting the soil from agents that cause soil erosion, such as water and wind.
As the mulch decomposes it also improves the structure of the soil by adding space between particles in the soil. The added space in the soil better supplies plant roots with water, oxygen and nutrients because the roots aren't compressed in hard, compacted soil.
It also regulates the temperature of the soil by providing an insulating layer. So in the winter it keeps soil warmer, and in summer it keeps it cooler, so helps plants combat the excesses of the summer heat, or the cold in winter.
Mulching promotes the activities of organisms that help the soil. Certain organisms such as earthworms help the soil in a very important way. When mulching is applied, it creates a very conducive environment for these soil organisms to operate and help the soil with their activities.
Problems with Burning
We are all very aware of the climate crisis and the issues with CO2 levels in the atmosphere. While our wood chipper runs on petrol, which obviously has an environmental impact, it produces less CO2 for 1 hour of chipping than burning 2kg of wood. Did you know that burning 1 kg of wood produces between 1.65 and 1.8kg of CO2? It can be argued that this doesnt matter too much as trees are carbon neutral (they use this amount of CO2 as they grow), but there are other issues with burning prunings.
Here in the Alpujarras it is very difficult to ignore the more direct consequences of burning during the winer months when all our neighbours are burning their prunings and the beautiful valleys are thick with wood smoke.
What is wood smoke?
Smoke forms when wood or other organic matter burns. The smoke from wood burning is made up of a complex mixture of gases and fine particles (also called particle pollution, particulate matter, or PM). In addition to particle pollution, wood smoke contains several toxic harmful air pollutants including benzene,formaldehyde,acrolein, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
What is it doing to us?
The biggest health threat from smoke is from fine particles, also called fine particulate matter or PM2.5. These microscopic particles can get into your eyes and respiratory system, where they may cause burning eyes, runny nose, and illnesses, such as bronchitis.
Fine particles can make asthma symptoms worse and trigger asthma attacks. Fine particles can also trigger heart attacks, stroke, irregular heart rhythms, and heart failure, especially in people who are already at risk for these conditions.
Wood smoke can affect everyone, but children, teenagers, older adults, people with lung disease, including asthma and COPD or people with heart diseases are the most vulnerable. There is also research from the University of Birmingham that suggests that wood smoke carries more carcinogens than petrol or diesel exhaust fumes.
At the end of the day, why would you want to burn your prunings, when you can produce really great mulch from it instead?
Mulching not burning
Wood chipping
Chain Sawing
Clearing and Strimming
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