It's just a load of old rubbish

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Permalink Reply by Karen on October 15, 2008 at 3:00pm

I've just found out that if you put the roots of nettles, dock, couch grass, bindweed and other vigourous nasties straight into your compost heap they will simply sprout up again as soon as they escape into the air. Sometimes the seeds survive too.
Well our garden is full of these things so I'm glad I found this advice first.

So..to kill them off, the best thing to do apparently, is put them into a bucket then cover them with water. This will soon make a highly nutritious - if smelly- ’soup’ (not sure I like the thought of it being smelly tho) that you can pour onto your garden for dramatic growth.

# Apparently evergreens don’t break down easily and they don’t make very good compost. So leave evergreen waste out too.
It looks like this composting isn't going to be as straightforward as I thought it was.
Karen

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Permalink Reply by Karen on October 15, 2008 at 4:46pm

One thing I will have lots less rubbish (although I have been trying to keep things to a bare minimum).. all the junk mail and unwanted free local newspapers will be going into the compost bin too. Did someone mention the ink is something to watch out for?
Karen

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Permalink Reply by Sue Browning on October 20, 2008 at 5:46pm

That might have been me! This is one of those 'facts' that I keep reading, but am not too sure we need to worry about. Unless your compost heap is predominantly printed paper, then I think the proportion of printed ink to other matter is too small to worry about.

And I've had no trouble composting nettles, even the roots (and they're a good compost accelerator), but couch grass and bindweed are a problem. Nettle 'soup' is very smelly (but good)! Most seeds shouldn't survive if your compost heap gets hot enough, but many don't, so it can be a problem. For this reason I always try to leave a short while after adding my compost to the ground before planting/seeding and then just pick off any weeds that grow before I start.

I must admit, I don't worry too much about it - I just put things in as they are available, trying not to put too much of any one thing at a time. We have four compost bins (all recycled plastic from the council!), so it is easy to add an excess to other bins if necessary. All four of my bins are full now, after my autumn clear-up at the weekend. In spring we will empty them all, take out the good compost and use it in the garden, and use the rest to start the next heap. That way everything gets a thorough mix up. Of course really committed composters turn their piles every few months. Like we've all got time for that!

Sue Browning Editing

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Barnard on November 15, 2008 at 1:29pm

I have 2 compost bins and between them we do really well for soil improving rough compost. I've never managed to make decent seed sowing compost.

We add in the cleanings from guinea pigs and chickens in thick activating layers and pile green stuff on top of that as we produce it when weeding or clearing. I used to add a commercial accelerator - high nitrogen from Wilko's - but I don;t need to now with the animal poop! The shavings and straw from the cages helps with the "brown" matter in the bin too, but I do shred and add junk mail, old bills etc too. Oh and the hoover gets emptied into the bin too so sometimes we do find some odd things in our compost, like lego but the kids pick it out.

Nettles and comfrey leaves get put in a plastic bin filled with water and it really does stink - but it's such fabulous plant food, excellent for pumpkins, tomatoes and hungry plants like that. Other nasty weeds like bindweed and some grasses get fed to the hens and processed that way. They currently have a pile of tangled bindweed, nasturtium and other clearing that we did this morning and they love it. Dandelions get fed to the guinea pigs. Not found much that can grow after being passed through either hens or piggies.

My compost making is very erratic and I don't follow a plan as such but I do make sure the pile in the bin isn't too wt or dry and is reasonably warm too.

Don't forget that you can compost soap nuts too!

Sarah

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