[zestymordant]

Well, we've pulled up tons of weeds in the allotment. Black bin bags all over the place.

Am I supposed to just burn them all? I know some can be left to rot for a while and be composted but they are all mixed together.

We have a metal bin with a hole on top (I don't know what the name for this is, it was just here when we got the lotty) for burning, the stuff in it has a lot of soil though. Is it a good idea to remove the soil first?

And can I compost the remains?

Any time I look up anything to do with weeds on Google I find a load of pages about smoking dope instead...

[moonglow]

Im in the same situation, got a pile of weeds but not quite sure what to do with them as they are mixed up with some soil, but i can provide options:).

1) Burn em, (leave them out in the sun to dry , this should remove some of the soil, then u can use the ash on some of your fruit.

2) dunk em in water for about a month, use the resulting water as a organic plant food and bag the rotted weeds up for a year then can be placed on the compost heap.

3) create a pile of weeds and cover them in black plastic(none light admitting though), leave these for a year to cook and you have yourself a ready made pile of compost. Have actually seen this working and apart from the odd root left it seems to me to be a good way of dealing with the weeds, only downside being space needed for it.

4) forgot this one so reedited my post. if you can sort out the anual weeds for the perenials then you can stick the anuals on the compost heap as long as they dont have flower, seed heads just also make sure u chop them up as well.

Hope this helps.

Mark.

Ps iv seen all the above in action, and have used the soaking them in water for a month before bagging as it is a free plant food also a way of using those plastic bottles and empty milk cartons , and i will deff try the black plastic one.

[SnooziSuzi]

Just put a few holes in the bottom of the bags to let any seepage come out and leave them all piled up in a corner.

After a year you should have some nice humous (and lots of snails attached to the bag but these can easily be despatched with the bottom of your welly ) to put back onto the beds.

I've done this with a bag of nettles, dock and other weeds (roots and all) and one bag of weeds that I filled only in April is already past the sludgy stage and after 12-18 months you'll have some good stuff, full of worms and stuff to put back into the soil.  Make sure the bags are well and truly covered though, otherwise the weeds could just start sprouting back out of the top of your bags instead of composting down!

I woulldn't

[zestymordant]

Thanks but I'm a bit scared to compost, along with the dandelion, dock etc. there's a ton of horsetail, won't that stuff start sprouting again when you reintroduce it to the soil?

[savbo]

Solutions to problem perennials in terms of green-ness

1 Compost them yourselves, if necessary after drowning for several weeks (which stinks terribly)

2 Put them in council Green waste bin

3 Burn them if you're allowed.

Too late for your weeds now but I try to separate out the horsetail and bindweed and put them in green waste, pretty much everything else gets composted. Difficult to get weeds dry enough to burn though if you've got a hot fire going with wood you can put weeds on that, though unless you've dried them they make lots of smoke

[simonwatson]

I put all my weeds, horsetail and all into old compost bags turned inside out (they are usually black on the inside) and then leave them on top of the compost bin. When the sun does come out, it cooks them so thoroughly that even the horsetail is no more. They stay in the bag until the following year. What comes out is dark, crumbly and wonderful.

[Yorkie]

All good advice.

I would always remove (shake off) as much soil as possible off roots when digging anything up.  Over time, you would be surprised how much the soil level can go down if you don't do this.

[potatogrower]

i would put them in the green wheelie bin or burn them, if allowed. create hot fire and throw the weeds on top. bit of steam if they're still green and its only way to ensure roots will die but i don't know if any weed seeds are able to withstand the hot fire. after the fire is out you can spread the ash all over your plot.

[Plot74]

All sound advice.
I piled all mine up last year and covered with thick black plastic. I have since turned it over twice taking out any roots I could find by next spring I should have about twenty barrow loads to put back onto the plot. I also made a second compost heap to put any other waste I acumilated this year .
John

[zestymordant]

Cheers all.

Next year I'll make sure I split the weeds into ones to burn and ones to compost.

[Kirpi]

Burning is a waste of nutrients in my opinion, better is to black bag and leave for a year and return to the growing beds as compost or the bottom of your next compost heap if you feel it needs to break down further.

[Yorkie]

It does rather depend on the amount of weeds versus the space you have available to store them.

On my plot, the amount of weeds is often far more than my storage capacity.

[grinling]

Ask allotment manager about rules for burning. We could do short duration and for the wind to be away from the houses and not when it was glorious sunshine (washing lines). Green stuff will be very smokey.

[angelavdavis]

I'm with Kirpi on this one.  Can't believe the amount of plotholders who either export their weed pullings in black sacks to the nearest landfill or who insist on burning them.  Unless they are harbouring rust, I either drown in water - thus providing feed for free or put in a bag to rot down and add to the compost heap.