"Janet" wrote in message
t...

In article ,
says...

Hi all

Using straw to raise stawberries off the ground seems to bring lots of
unwanted weeds into the garden.
This may be down to the source I suppose, a local pet supplies store.

The only seedlings you should get from straw, are wheat oats or
barley.

Are you sure you've not used hay, which is dried medow grass, full of
seeds from wild grass, buttercups and meadow plants... and more often
sold in petshops as hay combines food with bedding.

Straw goes through a thresher to remove seeds, hay doesnt.

I was thinking that field weedseed would be a handy cheap feed for the
garden birds, particularly finches.

I asked a local farmer "what happens to the weed seed when you hire a
combine. Is it retained onboard the combine?"

The gist of his reply was: "In the past, combines would sieve and separate
the weed seed, bag it, then eject onto the field. The farmer would collect
and burn. For various reasons (mainly cost) seed bagging equipment is no
longer installed. It's far cheaper (sadly) for herbicides to be used
instead" :- http://preview.tinyurl.com/oj2jfna