On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 18:59:34 +0000, Rhiannon Macfie Miller
wrote:

Our local council has been running a garden waste collection system for
some time, and has recently started making the compost therefrom
available for collection. I like the idea of free compost, but I'm a
little worried about whether I'll end up inflicting someone else's nasty
plant diseases on my garden if I use it. Is there much chance of that
happening, or is there some sort of regulation about sterilising compost?

Rhiannon

A properly made 'hot' compost heap gets pretty hot. I know from my own
experience with leylandii shreddings that a heap of them rapidly gets
too hot to put your hand into (i.e. in a couple of days). So I would
expect most pathogens to be killed off.

Down here in west Cornwall, our local council collects green waste. A
local farmer does all the shredding and composting, and spreads the
result on his fields. Who pays whom, I don't know. The council say
they would love to sell it to local gardeners, but aren't allowed to,
because the farmer adds 'slurry' to it from his cows, to act as an
accelerator in the composting process. Apparently, since the foot and
mouth epidemic, bureaucracy has gone berserk and DEFRA won't allow
distribution of the stuff to the general public until it's been
confirmed that the composting process renders it sterile.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net