On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 20:52:19 +0100,
(Jim W) wrote:

Heidi Stump wrote:

Please forgive my ignorance, I am a newbie to gardening! Is it safe to
throw weeds in my compost pile, or will they come back to haunt me once
I use the compost? If it is not a safe bet, what do you all do with
your pulled weeds? Leave them out to dry? Toss them in the garbage?


Generally 'annual' weeds such as grass, fat hen, annual poppies, etc
are safe to compost if they have not gone to seed.

If annuals have gone to seed they are only worth composting if your heap
is well made enough to produce enough heat to kill the seeds.

Perrenial weeds should be dried & burnt.
Or left to rot down in a water butt with a lid, or a thick black sack
that excludes light 100%.
You could also try feeding dried ones to worms in a worm bin if you have
the patience

Hate to add a "ditto" post, but this was essentially what I would
advise. No problem adding weeds that haven't set seed (or are about
to). "Hot" (actively maintained) compost is supposed to be able to
cook many weed seeds into non-germination, but I have a lazy 'cold'
(not with today's forecast, of course) pile, and dump most weeds with
seeds into the trash bin. You also have to be a little bit careful
with roots in a cold pile. There are plenty of opportunists delighted
to be dumped on a nice bunch of organic media. In that case, if you
have some place you can toss 'em and make sure they're thoroughly
dead, they'd be OK for compost, too.