Stumped

This is the story of a stump. This stump has lived in our backyard since we moved in. It has made mowing tricky and I considered it to be an eye sore. Our weather the last week has been beautiful, so I decided to clean up the backyard a bit. While doing so, it occurred to me that it was time for the stump to go.

All pictures from my phone. Sorry for quality.

I grabbed our little electric 14 in. chain saw and just started cutting (with appropriate eye, hand, and foot protection, of course). I cut as close to the ground as I possibly could to allow the mower to run above it without hitting the blade.

Due to the lack of gas power to my weapon of choice, the cutting process did take a while. I cut all the way around, making sure to catch it at angles that would allow the chainsaw to really dig into it. About 20-30 minutes later, I was able to knock it over with my hand.

Once it was down, I remembered that I had seen a natural way to help the rot process take out the remaining small stump and root system. It looked so easy, I decided to try it out.

As you can see above, I started by drilling multiple holes about an inch or so apart randomly over the whole remaining stump. Instructions then told me to follow up by rubbing pure Espom Salt into the holes and watering it just enough to help moisten the wood to allow the salt to do its work. Apparently Epsom Salt is good for gardens because it works as a fertilizer. Good to know!

You can see the white holes on the right that have already been filled with the salt. I just rubbed it in with my hand.

That was it! Hopefully in the next month we will start to see some rot progress. I figured this would be a fun "try it and follow up" post, so about a month from now, I'll let you know how it's going!