newbie question--composting weeds
Hi all,
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? Thanks! Heidi |
newbie question--composting weeds
I compost everything except bindweed, which will survive a nuclear
holocaust. After the end of August, when I know it'll get cold and composting will slow down, the weeds go into the regular garbage. If I weed near the end of October, I leave them on the surface to dry out, and the snow deals with them. I'm in Rochester NY. For other areas of the country, substitute "your nastiest weed" for bindweed. -Doug "Heidi Stump" wrote in message ... Hi all, 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? Thanks! Heidi |
newbie question--composting weeds
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 // Jim |
newbie question--composting weeds
I put all the weeds I pull from my yard in my compost bin. Although
I'm careful about removing any seeds of weeds I REALLY do not want to have grow in my yard (just in case they do not die in the bin), for example, burrs and goat heads (puncture weeds), these I throw in the trash. Your compost heap *should* kill most of the weed seeds, either by heat, or germination in an environment they cannot grow. The safest thing, of course, would be to pull the weeds before they go to seed- then there are no worries about having them in your compost. Heidi Stump wrote in message ... Hi all, 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? Thanks! Heidi |
newbie question--composting weeds
On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 19:23:10 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
typed these words: I compost everything except bindweed, which will survive a nuclear holocaust. After the end of August, when I know it'll get cold and composting will slow down, the weeds go into the regular garbage. If I weed near the end of October, I leave them on the surface to dry out, and the snow deals with them. I'm in Rochester NY. For other areas of the country, substitute "your nastiest weed" for bindweed. -Doug I'm in eastern Kentucky. When I lived in southeast Tennessee, bindweed was "my nastiest weed," but here hogweed and chickweed give it close competition in the vegetable gardens. I've just finished reading the "how do I prepare a grassy area for planting flowers" thread, and y'all have inspired me to pull the old newspapers out of the burnable brushpile. We have a ten-foot deep, 120-foot long sloped area between the front fence and the street, and it's just awful to mow. Along the fence are a couple holly trees (yes, _trees_, they're forty and twenty years old, respectively) and a fifty-year-old rose bush. When I moved here a couple years ago I planted wildflowers along the fence, hoping they'd escape into the berm (or whatever you choose to call that 120 x 10 grassy strip). They've started, but at this slow rate it will be years before I can forgo mowing. This year I have a new idea: I will plant flowering shrubs at intervals along the fence, a big enough variety that I'll have different colors and textures, and different things blooming for as long as possible. I've started with a lone forsythia spike. So many pretty shrubs bloom here in the spring, but I don't know the name of many of them. I'm better at identifying weeds and wildflowers. Anyway, about the wildflowers: The poppies along the fence are about halfway through blooming and I've cut lots of seedheads; they're drying in paper sacks in the garage, along with the forget-me-not I collected earlier in the spring. If I don't cut the seed-heads, they escape into the yard, in the WRONG direction! I guess now I should put newspaper down, and since *buying* topsoil is out of the question, I should weigh down the newspaper with the plentiful rocks in our vegetable garden, and the hell with what the neighbors think? I don't think my two-year-old compost pile is big enough to cover more than a few square feet of newspaper. Maybe I should just spot-paper to begin with, like, around the roses, around the mailbox, under the holly...? I like this group, there are always nice folks and on-topic posts. The trouble I have is my time is stretched between so many interests and obligations I rarely involve myself with any USENET group for more than a few weeks at a time. That doesn't mean I don't want to be here. Juliebee in Kentuckee http://www.bobsloansampler.com/ Bearskin to Holly Fork: Stories from Appalachia by Bob Sloan ISBN: 1-893239-21-7 |
newbie question--composting weeds
Heidi Stump wrote in message ...
Hi all, 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? Thanks! Heidi A seperate compost for use in deep shade where weeds are unlikely to grow is a good way of utilizing them. |
newbie question--composting weeds
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