Topic: compost problem

[tomatoada]

The allotment I have taken on has a compost heap which contains perennial weeds, according to a neighboring allotment holder.  The secretary told me the compost "was suspect" when I joined.  What should I do with it?  If I leave it for another year will it be O.K. to use?  Would it  be O.K. in the bottom of a bean trench, and covered with manure.  The compost is in a dialek.  Any suggestins please.

[wardy]

Do you know these voices of doom should be buried in a deep hole in a far off plot.  They always come out of the woodwork as soon as a newbie comes over the horizon, with their doom-laden tidings.  We've all had it!  I got diseased raspberries.  I spent months trying to uproot them, glyphos them, short of using explosives they kept coming back until I thought hold on these look in the most fantastic of health why am I trying to obliterate them  ;D   

"Suspect compost" What's in it?  Nuclear waste, spent plutonium  ;D  Just leave it in the dalek and the heat in the summer should finish off any nasties.  You can drown perennial weeds in a tub of water if you want to be on the safe side. You sink them in a butt for about 3 weeks and then you can chuck em back in your dalek but use the butt water as plant food.  Good luck and don't worry  :)

[nickhitch]

hi mag..perennial weeds have been my nightmare for 2yrs now,,namely bindweed....my advice having had bindweed and other perennials in my compost is to carefully sift thru it and pull out any roots u may see....and do the same again in spring when any missed roots will b germinating and easy to see...do not put the compost in a deep bean trench as i have heard stories of perennial roots surviving as deep as 9ft below ground

[Derekthefox]

I think I have lost all my frustration with the perennial weeds now, they keep on coming up whereever I look, so I take out those I see ... I think I am winning, but I no longer worry, it is only in the late summer when the weeds start to take over, mainly when I go on my annual holidays, and come back to an infested jungle.

It happens, so I just start the clearance all over again ...

Derekthefox :D

[Robert_Brenchley]

You can use the compost if you want, just be careful to pick out any roots which are still alive. I do that every year.

[wardy]

Weeds are a fact of life and the less time spent worrying about them the better.  Ah got that off my chest  ;D

[grassroots]

Hi Maggie, keep going for the roots it's the only way sooner or later you will start to win.

[carloso]

Hey man

"If weed be the food of life smoke on man " errr " eat on man"




written by shakespears gardener ! makes ya wonder !

[Icyberjunkie]

I agree with everyone who says about sifting out the weeds.  I am a master at growing bindweed in my compost. The advice I was given and that seems to work is to carefully pick out the roots and then spread it NOW on the surface of the soil 1. because the frost will kill the smaller roots and 2.  if any start sprouting they are easy to see and remove.

Once you feel happy you've done your best dig it in.  This sounds like hard work but it isn't.

  Happy composting!   Iain

[wardy]

I don't dig so I don't go looking for them  ;D
On GW the other week Sarah Raven was at Riverford Organics in a field of broad beans.  The field was full of weeds as well as broad beans and he wasn't slightly concerned as he said in nature everything grows together and he said they didn't get the problem of blackfly by having them with the weeds.  This also answers folks questions on here about how organic growers deal with pests - well that was one answer  :)
My plants aren't smothered in perennial weeds.  I keep bare soil covered up and I'm starving my weeds of light, having bonfires on them, etc - all different ways of dealing with them and getting ground clear so I don't have to dig.  The areas where I've had my bonfires as we did have a terrific amount of rubbish etc on the plot, are clear of weeds and have remained so but the creeping buttercup does encroach so I have a good hoe and deal with them.  I mainly have docks  :(

[Robert_Brenchley]

I find that after many months in a compost bin, even the toughest weeds are sufficiently weakened that if they do get planted by accident they won't do much, and they just get dug out again when I harvest the crop. If you have an open compost heap it's important to keep it covered with plastic, but as long as the heap's out of the light you don't have to be too worried.

[wardy]

My pallet compost bin looks not to be rotting very much so I've folded up one of those Wicks blue sheets and covered it all up for the winter to try and keep the heat in.  I like to put weeds in the compost bins so no soil is wasted.  With no-dig you really need loads of compost and manure so can't afford to lose any veggie matter  :)

[redimp]

I stick virtually everything in my darlek type bins - I just leave it longer so that the perrenials give up trying to grow.

[wardy]

I rate the dalek bins, they heat up like mad and at only a fiver (well they are where I live) they're worth their weight in gold

If you put grass cuttings in Clang during the really hot weather you could cook your dinner in it.  They get red hot.  We set one up for our lotty open day last year and got grass clippings in it, rotting away and we made a hollow in the steaming mass and people were invited to put their hand in to feel how hot it was.  All the fun of the fair  ;D

[Derekthefox]

I haven't yet got one of these bins, at a fiver, they sound like a bargain ...

Derekthefox :D

[wardy]

Derek they are 330 litre ones from Blackwall's.  They are on the web and you ring them and they ask for your post code to determine how much they charge you.  Mine were a fiver each but my niece will have to pay £13.50 for the same bin.  I'm ordering hers instead.  Your'e only supposed to get two but they don't bother and now I've got 7 of em and a big square soil saver which I;m not struck on but it was free (should have been £15)

They are delivered as well for the fiver  ;D

[Derekthefox]

Thank you Wardy, could you pm me with the link? Sorry to be a burden, but I want to make sure I get the correct blackwalls ...

There may be a closer distributor since I live in Coventry, perhaps 100 miles south of you ( did you say you are north Derbyshire?).

Thanks

Derekthefox :D

[redimp]

http://www.blackwall-ltd.com/homecomposting1.htm