[Mr Rotavator]

Evening all.

For the last six years since getting my plot I have been dumping all the above roots and other unwanted weeds on a pile at the bottom of the plot. The pile started with the couch that I cleared from my plot, so as I add to it each year it is now quite large and is causing issues, therefore it has to go. The pile is quite solid.

I was thinking about starting a new pile with the fresh stuff from this season, stick the oldish stuff in a darlek on its on own for a year or two and with the very old stuff fill the bottom of some containers if it looks like soil.

Any thoughts?

[sunshineband]

If all the roots are actually dead your plan might be successful, but I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them will have just hibernated in the middle of that pile and will come back to life given half a chance.

I would sieve the bottom of the pile very thoroughly to make sure there are no bits of root at all, before I used it elsewhere.

[Ledders]

When I took over my plot 3 years ago it was matted with couch and both bindweed and mares tail appeared through the season. Rather than takes 30 odd bags to the tip, I created several 'bins' which I double lined with black plastic to keep the light out. 3 years later and I have some wonderful stuff to put back on the plot but only after careful sieving - some of the couch roots were still intact.

[Christine]

Sounds like a drying and bonfire job to me to be quite sure nothing comes back.

[ptarmigan]

I bagged it all up in old compost bags and left at bottom of allotment for 3 years. Lovely stuff when tipped out. Had to pick out a few couch roots but not many.

[Mum2mj]

At home I burn perennial weeds, but I can't do that at the plot so I drown them before putting in the compost. I have so many weeds already I don't want to risk any surviving!

[al78]

Get a good size container (a small wheelie bin would be ideal), fill with water (or let the rain fill it with water) and dump the perennial weed roots in with the water, making sure they are submerged, then put a lid on the container. After a couple of weeks or so the roots should be rotting and the water will contain plant nutrients that had previously been consumed by the weeds when they were growing, which you can now dilute and use on your crops as a liquid feed. Remove the roots when they have turned into a black rotten sludge and put on compost heap, then repeat, starting by digging up all the perennial weeds that will have regrown in those couple of weeks.