Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => General Gardening => Topic started by: joannebolton on August 10, 2006, 20:17

Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: joannebolton on August 10, 2006, 20:17: hi there, another question for you people that have a clue unlike me!!!

can i put weeds and weed roots that i have dug into the compost bin?

thanks in advance
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: Celtic Eagle on August 11, 2006, 12:32: Hi

Two distinct answers to this one

If the weeds are annuals and have not seeded then yes

If the weeds are perenials then the top growth is OK again provided they havn't seeded but not the roots, they will regrow and be spread all over the allotment.

If in doubt don't compost. A good cheap or better still free reference book with photos will help with identifying the weeds.

Good Luck
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: John on August 11, 2006, 19:07: If you use a compost accelerator - like Garotta - the heap should heat up enough in theory to kill weed roots and seeds. Trouble is that most heaps don't heat up enough. I find these plastic enclosed bins do work well, though.

You can also try drowning perrenial roots (perrenials are weeds like dock and dandelion that regrow from bits of root) iunder water for a few weeks.
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: Heather_S on August 11, 2006, 19:13: Quote from: "john"

You can also try drowning perrenial roots (perrenials are weeds like dock and dandelion that regrow from bits of root) iunder water for a few weeks.

Not to pick on you, John, but has anyone used that foul smelling liquid (diluted) as feed? in The Allotment Book by Andi Clevely they point out various weeds are high in different essential nutrients so the resulting disgusting liquid from them being drowned/decomposed, can be used as a liquid feed. Sort of a less scientific and general fertilizer than nettles or comfrey alone...
I have a large former storage bin of black (!) decomposing weeds which reeks and I'm wondering if I should try diluted it to weak tea colour to feed the plants.
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: milkman on August 12, 2006, 17:35: I am drowning my bindweed, creeping buttercups, creeping sow/milk thistles roots in a big waterbutt at the back of my plot to extract the goodness - this then gets poured in the compost bin every now and again as I add new material. I can vaguely remember reading somewhere that bob flowerdew does this as a way of making use of nutrients out of weeds rather than chucking them out. I'm not sure if this method would work successfully with japanese knotweed though...
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: noshed on August 13, 2006, 18:18: I think Japanese Knotweed comes into a special category - get the council in. I'll let you know how that goes. There may be B52s about.
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: James on August 14, 2006, 15:50: I dry out my perennial weed roots and then add them to the compost heap. Just throw them on a concrete slab for a few days in the full sun & bye bye.
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: Laura on August 19, 2006, 21:57: I think Japanese Knotweed comes into a special category - get the council in. I'll let you know how that goes. There may be B52s about.
Quote

according to this month's gardeners world magazine article about how to deal with weeds if you dig up any japanese knotweed rhizomes you must"take them to a licensed waste site as they are controlled watse (environmental protection act 1990)"
not knowing this until last week, when we dug them up out of our plot earlier this year we burnt them, seemed to do the trick mind as we've not had any back...
...yet
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: wombling2006 on September 19, 2006, 13:39: I've been battling with knotweed for weeks.....but The lottie I took over had been left for years really....Its fine to burn them on site...And the council I come under, Wigan, advise you to do that....They did specifically tell me not to take the root off site, even to the local recycling place.....
Dug majority of it up and I'm spraying it again today for the third time...I'm hoping it might weaken it substantially this time...bad stuff though.... got mares tail as well!!! A suitably nightmarish weedy mix... :shock:
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: milkman on September 19, 2006, 13:41: keep at it wombling - we're all thinking of you!
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: wombling2006 on September 19, 2006, 13:41: ooer apologies....don't know how that came up twice....
typical me :?
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: John on September 19, 2006, 14:11: Hi Wombling - not your fault, I've sorted it. Basically we keep overloading the database... problems of success I suppose!

I'm going to have to move us to a new hosting server at some point but it's a pretty daunting task. I'd need to take the forum offline for 2 days as well. <sigh>

Bring back DOS I say - I could cope with computers then :)
Title: weeds and compost bins
Post by: wombling2006 on September 19, 2006, 14:44: I don't know about DOS......Most of my life at mo consists mainly of (homer Simpson style)DOH!!! s... :roll:
We will be fine in your expert hands I'm sure... :)