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Instead of burning pernicious weed roots on a bonfire, has anyone tried a smaller-scale approach?

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  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    I am a bit suspicious of council recycling of any kind @JennyJ, as I'm not sure they do cook them properly, but I must admit in the spring I do resort to bags to the tip.
    The council don't give or sell the compost back to us gardeners (at least not directly - I suppose it might end up in commercial bagged soil improver), so I don't really care! It's up to whoever gets the stuff to complain if it grows weeds.
    I compost what I can at home but I don't have space for extra bags sitting around for years, or bonfires.  I don't see any point in spending my time and petrol going to the tip - stuff put in the green waste skip will most likely end up in the same place as the green bin collections and bagged stuff put in the general waste skip will be landfilled or incinerated (same as the black bin collections).

    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • barry islandbarry island Posts: 1,847
    I compost mine, docks, bindweed, nettles, couch grass, in a plastic dalek for two to three years it turns to soil. I've done this for some time now and it does work. Plants need three things to live, food, moisture and light, take away the light for long enough and they will die.
  • herbaceousherbaceous Posts: 2,318
    I'm sure you're right @JennyJ and it all ends up in the same place  :)  Since I would only use it once (or maybe twice) a year I baulk a bit at the cost. Cheaper for me to put the bite on one of my daughters and get it taken to the tip - no car of my own.
    "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Sir Terry Pratchett
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    At the moment we don't pay any extra for a green bin, but who knows what will happen next year or after that.  They've already stopped green bin collections between December and March.  December and January, maybe February I can understand, but March is big garden tidy-up month.  If they start charging extra I will re-think my approach.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • DyersEndDyersEnd Posts: 730
    I suppose you could put it on a different shelf of the oven while you're baking a cake or maybe a quick blast in the microwave would do the trick.
  • ButtercupdaysButtercupdays Posts: 4,546
    edited October 2018
    I don't use my green bin, or rather, I do but only for storing leafmould.
    We had a green and a black bin delivered, without asking for them, but we live half a mile from the road, where the collection takes place, and it would be impossible to get a full bin in the car!
    They accept black bin bags from us though,  and I take all my recycling with me to the local supermarket when I go. :)
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Our brown bin [green/food waste] is collected weekly all year round, so crappy, pernicious  weeds all go in it. I gave up with a compost bin - I can't locate it anywhere suitable, that's also warm enough to get it to rot down in lss than two years. I may get a plastic dustbin and disguise it as a beehive, or summat, and have another go though. I miss doing it.

    As far as I'm aware, the council uses the resulting compost themselves, it's not for sale to us commoners. 
    Never feel guilty about drowning/suffocating couch grass  :D
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    You are lucky if you have a free garden waste collection service... I pay for mine annually, brown bin, and I really think I need two for next year, and as it's a fortnightly collection, one bin in summer is not enough..

    Incidentally, some weeds are really beneficial, like Plantago Major [common plaintain weed]… if you chop up the roots you have ready made mycorrhizal fungi to place in your planting hole around the rootball of your ornamental plant... especially good with roses and perennials.. it's been proved to work...no need for the packet stuff...
     
    East Anglia, England
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    @Marlorena no, I didn't know that. Thank you  :)

    Every day's a school day here  B)
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • MarlorenaMarlorena Posts: 8,705
    Yes... although we must thank Monty Don for highlighting this fact on GW a year or two ago, but I long suspected it, as for donkey's years I've been planting my roses with weedy chopped up lawn turf riddled with plaintains,  with such results that startled me really, but I never understood the science behind it..
    East Anglia, England
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