plaster in the garden

HI all

I have a bag of Board finish plaster that is over 18months out of date so needs getting rid of - my thinking was to tip it into the garden and dig it in - I was under the impression its just gypsum so will add to the soil

Is this a good idea ?

if not ive just dug a 6 foot deep soak away , am I good o just tip it in to that ?

Tip isn't an option as they wont take plaster

Thanks

Carl

 

If it gets wet it will go solid, so unless you spread it out very very thinly, you would possibly end up with a lump in the soil or worse in the soak away.
At our local Recycling place there is a skip for building rubble. There are often half bags of plaster and cement in it.

 

Ours too I took 2 old bags down week before last with no problems. As for in the garden I personally wouldn't, as palustris says it goes solid with moisture.

Rusty

 

No, that's coming from someone who has spent months digging out plaster from my garden which was dumped by previous owners of our home in the past. It goes hard but breaks up really easily when you dig the soil. Do yourself a favour and take it down to the tip. Even stick it in a black bin liner and stick it in general waste at the tip if they really don't take the stuff. But like others have already said the tip should take it as most plaster is broken down and reused in future plasterboard.

 

Some tips wont take it, best check on the local authority website to see where you can dispose of it.

It's water soluble if you did put it in the soakaway, but only very slowly

 

I think it will be going in the bottom of the bin one week when we haven't got much rubbish

 

I would imagine that it would be fine, as long as you 'smooth' it over
Seriously though, unless there are health/pollution issues, I can't think of any reason why you couldn't spread it around and dig it in. Just try to avoid any concentrations which will lead to lumps of the stuff.

 

Being you've had it 18 months already, just add it slowly to the waste bin week by week, or make a gardren Gnome

 

I'm presuming plaster has other additives??

I do know gypsum is used to break up clay soil, would be an interesting experiment, but obviously you would need to spread it over the surface and dig it in straight away.

We often use sand from the builders, and are warned not too, mostly by those that sell the horticultural type at very high prices.

Wonder if the same could be true with gypsum?

 

I'd have no qualms at all about digging it in, as long as, as others have said, its not just in one great lump.

Only one concern springs to mind. I think, but am not sure, that it will raise the soil pH slightly because it contains lime. That would only pose a problem if you wanted to grow lime hating plants in the immediate vicinity.

If I was making a new path, I'd have no qualms whatsoever about using it at the bottom of whatever you make the path out of. In the countryside, paths are often made out of dolomite, which I believe (and @Zigs is the local rock expert so might correct me) is also a type of lime, and it poses no problems there.

 

Gypsum is a separate mineral from lime & is PH neutral, no problems there

Dolomite is indeed a type of limestone, magnesium carbonate as opposed to calcium carbonate, not looked it up but would imagine its the same alkalinity as the other.

I remember collecting some crystals of it from the actual Dolmite hills/mountains in Italy, must have been about 1973