Help for a novice... What use are brambles and weeds for the future?
 

Just getting into gardening... our 130ft garden has been somewhat neglected and we are now doing stuff too if.

To start we have had cut down about 200m sq of weeds and brambles from the back end of our garden.

What use would this all be if I hired a shredder and had this as mulch? Should I bag it up and take away or use on the rest of the garden?

You could shred the brambles, but then they need composting - I wouldn't put them onto borders until Autumn of next year. The weeds are likely to be perennials (dandelions, dock, nettles etc) which I would never put on the compost - I'd take them to your nearest tip and put them in the green waste.
However, nettles (with roots chopped off) are good for composts, so if you're prepared to faff, you could extract those. I don't know if you've made compost before - if not, Google has lots of items about what to do. Hope this helps.

Help for a novice... What use are brambles and weeds for the future?
 

In article ,
Janet Conroy wrote:

You could shred the brambles, but then they need composting - I
wouldn't put them onto borders until Autumn of next year. The weeds
are likely to be perennials (dandelions, dock, nettles etc) which I
would never put on the compost - I'd take them to your nearest tip and
put them in the green waste.

Brambles
http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Rubus+villosus
Edible Parts: Fruit.

Fruit - raw or cooked[105, 161]. Rather variable in quality, there are a
number of named forms with delicious fruits that have been selected for
cultivation[2].
http://www.holistic-online.com/Herba..._Herbs/h97.htm

Used for:

Diarrhea
Wounds
Mouth Sores, Sore Throat
Hemorrhoids
------

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants....cum+officinale
Dandelion

Edible Parts: Flowers; Leaves; Root.

Edible Uses: Coffee; Tea.

Medicinal Uses
Aperient; Cholagogue; Depurative; Diuretic; Hepatic; Laxative;
Stomachic; Tonic; Warts.
------
http://www.pfaf.org/database/search_...?ALLNAMES=dock
http://www.holistic-online.com/Herba...Herbs/h314.htm

Great Burdock
Edible Parts: Leaves; Root; Seed; Stem.

Medicinal Uses

Alterative; Antibacterial; Antifungal; Antiphlogistic; Aperient; Blood
purifier; Carminative; Cholagogue; Depurative; Diaphoretic; Diuretic;
Hypoglycaemic; Stomachic.

Burdock is one of the foremost detoxifying herbs in both Chinese and
Western herbal medicine[254].
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http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Urtica+dioica

Urtica dioica - L.: Stinging Nettle

Edible Parts: Leaves.

Edible Uses: Colouring; Curdling agent; Drink.

Medicinal Uses

Antiasthmatic; Antidandruff; Astringent; Diuretic; Galactogogue;
Haemostatic; Hypoglycaemic; Stings; Tonic.

----

Pity, I'd love to have these plants in my yard.
--

Billy
Republican and Democratic "Leadership" Behind Bars
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1248.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net

Hodgesant: I suspect you are in the UK (the use of "garden" rather than "yard" is a good clue), as am I, whereas Billy is in the USA. None of the brambles I've seen in neglected gardens have ever fruited. I don't get the impression you're looking for herbal remedies, more to shift a load of stuff you've chopped down without throwing out the good with the bad.

If you can shred it, it will be a great start for your future compost heaps. You will need to remove the bramble roots before you start cultivating and mulching.

Help for a novice... What use are brambles and weeds for the future?
 

"hodgesant" wrote in message
...

Just getting into gardening... our 130ft garden has been somewhat
neglected and we are now doing stuff too if.

To start we have had cut down about 200m sq of weeds and brambles from
the back end of our garden.

What use would this all be if I hired a shredder and had this as mulch?
Should I bag it up and take away or use on the rest of the garden?

Anything that has once been alive is useful in the garden that includes
weeds, sawdust, dead chooks, cotton shirts and old woollen pullovers.

The soil under brambles will probably be very productive (or it is in my
locality) as all those years of leaf litter enriches the soil.

Weeds, and especially ones like Dock, are also very useful alive or dead.
Dock and similar plants (such as much maligned Scotch thistle) are what I
call 'deep miners' as their roots go a long way down and they pull up and
use nutrients that more shallow rooted plants can't use. If you doubt my
word, dig up a dock or something like it and check out where the worms are.

I have appalling soil and when I first started my veg beds in land that had
only first been cleared of scrub in the 1960s and which had never, ever had
any pasture improvement done on it, there was not a worm to be seen. After
af ew years of my tender care, I had lots of weeds and initially despaired
but then I noticed that the only place where there were worms was right in
and aroudn the roots of the deep miners. I now encourage deep miners and
just lop the tops off them so they don't seed all over the place.

Compost the lot. And if you aren't up to compost turning, shove the lot in
a neglected corner and it will eventually all rot down anyway.

Or, if you are one of those gardeners who simply can't stand seeing any sort
of 'mess', have the lot taken away and buy and bring in bags of nutrients.