Topic: burn it or compost it

[paulg]

I have nearly finished cutting down all the brambles from my new plot and now have a huge heap. Which is the best way of using these. Should i compost the brambles (and the bramble roots once dug) or burn the lot and put the ash onto the allotment as i think this is good for the soil(may be wrong on that one :-\).
Please help :)


Paul

[Lauren S]

Hi Paul,
I'm sure burning would be quicker. The brambles would take a very long time to rot down unless you gave them a helping hand with a chipper machine. I'm sure the bonfire ash is good for onions and garlic but the more experienced gardeners will be along soon  :)

[Busby]

Burning anything is an added burden for the earth's atmosphere. The last things we want to burn are those things that can be easily composted, it may take more time, trouble and planning, but it's the only real way.

Somebody once said that time is nature's composting guru, everything in the end lands up as compost, burning stuff doesn't give nature a chance.

[Old bird]

Hi PaulG

I would always burn things like that!  I would wait though until it has dried out quite a bit - get a really hot base (bring in some dry wood to make the base) for the fire and away you go! Magic!

Lots of people say that it is environmentally wrong to do that - but it certainly is the quickest way and you really don't want to be messing about trying to compost things like that.  It would probably take a couple of years to rot down and then you would need to mix in different textures to compact the stuff.

Burn it!!

Old Bird

[PAULW]

Burn it you are only releasing the carbon dioxide that the plant took up in its lifetime, and it would take ages for the thorns to break down into useable compost and you have to think of all that methane the composting process produces LOL.

[Multiveg]

Methane I think is a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

[Rob the rake]

It's reckoned that termites (via methane) produce more greenhouse gas than the whole of the human race!

Hello everyone, by the way. :)

Rob.

[manicscousers]

hiya, rob..welcome to the site, what a mine of info , so, if we get rid of termites, it'll help with global warming  ;D

[Rob the rake]

As long as we don't compost them! ;D ;D ;D

Rob.

[ipt8]

Burn it and use the ash. I think th ethorns would take an age to compost.

[Baccy Man]

Burn it you are only releasing the carbon dioxide that the plant took up in its lifetime, and it would take ages for the thorns to break down into useable compost and you have to think of all that methane the composting process produces LOL.

Organic matter only produces methane when composted in anaerobic conditions ie: buried in a landfill site. At landfill sites the methane is collected & burned but around 50% of that gas will escape into the atmosphere as it is about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide it will do significantly more environmental damage.
A compost heap is aerobic and the waste can decompose in the presence of oxygen. In these conditions carbon dioxide rather than methane is produced and so the greenhouse effects are reduced. The only way a compost heap can produce methane gas is if you allow anaerobic conditions to occur by not turning it.

As far as brambles go I cleared a load in late September/early October they were composted & the finished compost was spread on Saturday there was no thorns, no stems & no roots in the finished compost.

If you do decide to burn them & spread the ash then spead it thinly too much ash in one place can do more harm than good.

[Tohellwithweeds]

hi to you when i got my allotment it was covered in brambles and i asked my dad what to do and he said burn them because by the time they had rotted down i would be drawing my pension so my advice is burn the bu****s good luck with them

[paulg]

thanks all for some many options. I think after all that i will take them all home and put them through my garden shredder and put them in the garden waste recycle bin and let the council compost them.

thanks again
Paulg

[tonybloke]

If you've got a shredder, and a source of human urine, you can compost your brambles quickly. keep the heap covered to hold in heat (and keep cold rain out), turn after 2 weeks (maybe longer in winter). when ready, put back on land it came from. Burning or removing any Non-diseased plant material is a shamefull waste of resource. Most plants, weeds included, tend to accumulate the very minerals that are deficient in a particular soil, i.e. clover in nitrogen poor soils, daisies in calcium poor, fat hen in phosphorous deficient areas, The plants are telling you something, compost them, or dig them in, don't burn or remove permanently, Composting ain't that difficult! rgds, Tony, Norfolk.
You will never plough the field by turning it over in your mind

[kt.]

Cut down bramble bushes are an excellent way of covering newly sown seeds to get established to prevent being eaten by birds. The same applies for transplanting plug plants. Place them over the selected area to protect your young crop. Then shred the brambles afterwards.

[tuinman]

You have to watch the blighters don't take root. I personally would "dump" them somewhere out of the way (unused land), where I could go back and pick them next year. ;)

[kenkew]

Take off the thorns, wash, dry and bag them then sell 'em at a car-boot sale as organic tooth-picks. Or, glue them to a pallet off-cut for use as a back scratcher..come-on, save the planet!
 :D

[Eristic]

If anyone is into craft work brambles can be recycled into very strong baskets or beehive skeps. The secret is to rive the bramble into halves or quarters depending on its thickness, then the thorns become totally harmless and the riven stems can be pulled across your arm without harm.

As the work dries out it shrinks and the thorns lock into the work making a strong tie.

Regarding saving the planet though, it makes no difference whether the biomass is burnt or composted. It's still a short cycle to be reclaimed by the new growth.

[bupster]

Eristic, how would I find out more about that? I'm very keen to reuse my brambles...

[Eristic]

The trickyest bit is to rive the bramble without getting lots of little bits. A pocket knife is ideal for this using the old to and fro method that the catch phrase is derived from. Skeps were made mostly from long straw bundled into a rope and tied with the bramble pieces using a series of hitches as in cable tieing. To keep the straw rope of uniform thickness you need a funnel which could be made from a plastic bottle. (I can. Can you ;D)

Once the straw rope is bound up with the bramble, it is coiled and tied back to itself using more bramble until the desired size and shape is achieved. When I was playing about, the straw was not to hand so I just used more bramble.