I agree with much of what @MikeOxgreen says too and agree with @VictorMeldrew for the rest. I compost all my garden waste except for laurel prunings which I take to the amenity site 5 miles away. If I could find a good way of dealing with those then I would. I'm very fortunate that I have space for 3 large heaps and a bin, I do appreciate that others don't have that facility.
The garden waste bin was never used once, it's a stupid idea, was and still is a complete waste of tax payers money.
I agree with much of what you say about composting Mike but I'm left wondering what you do with all the coarse stuff.
We have quite a large garden with many sizeable shrubs / trees. I've been severely pruning many of them and even bought a new shredder/chipper to reduce the volume of the woody spoil. The leafy stuff & smaller branches are fed into my smaller shredder which makes nice compostable material but the larger stuff goes into the chipper and once reduced down then goes into the garden-waste bin. The last pruning project produced so much chipped material that we had to hold it back in several large aggregate bags between bin collections.
Yes we could have spread it over the beds as mulch but we didn't want this woody (& coniferous) material on them. Yes we could have loaded it into the motor and driven 10 miles to the refuse centre. But for this job we were really grateful for the green bin collection.
Unfortunately most domestic composting doesn't create enough heat to kill off pernicious weed roots & seeds. We have quite a good sizeable 2 bay heap but even with that my spring & early summer grass cuttings go in the green bin because there are so many dandelion heads hoovered up by the mower and I don't want that material on my beds or in my pots.
Considering much of my taxes & rates are used to provide services for other people which we don't use, I'll ****** well get the most use out of this one
Impossible I know, but if everyone stopped using the service, they'd stop it and the money would go elsewhere, hopefully to something more useful! I've heard in some areas people actually have to pay a separate fee to have their brown waste removed, I wish ours was.
Admittedly getting rid of the bigger stuff is harder. In your case if you'd advertised it for free someone would have taken it. We use dried twigs and branches as kindling for lighting the stove in Winter, some is also thrown in a heap because the wildlife love it and the rest is mulched. Before now I just burned it along with dried up weeds and put the ash on the compost heap. You have to be careful when you burn it (and that's if you actually can where you live). Obviously Nov 5th is prime time, but any dark filthy winters eve is ok for a fire for most people. If you compost right your heap should get up to 65c which should in theory kill seeds. You'd need to turn once or more though. You can by hot bins and rotary composters if you want to go all the way, but that's costing more £££.
I know it isn't in most peoples range, but excitingly i'm learning hot composting with a view to heating my greenhouse in Winter. You know the best material for a good, hot and long lasting compost? Shredded woody stuff. Then we'll have Winter veg and also a longer growing season in Summer.
Jenny, if you try to sow your seeds in rows/straight lines, you’ll soon recognise the weeds.
I generally station-sow any seeds that are big enough to pick up individually and in pinches for tiny ones like lobelia, in two rows along a quarter tray, and I water from below so as not to move them about, but somehow I'm not as accurate as I think. And weedlings can come up anywhere in the tray/pot including right where I put the seeds.
I'd still like seedling ID pics on seed packets (obviously it wouldn't work for things like flower mixes and salad mixes that contain a bunch of different things).
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
I think anyone who says they don't have room for a composter should post some pics of their gardens. If you have a garden at all, you have room. There can't be many people who don't have the 2 foot square needed for a compost bin, if you really don't then why did you plan you garden so badly? A compost bin is part of any basic, decent and proper garden. It's like saying 'I can't get in my garden' because you forgot to leave space to walk.
Saying "I don't have space" simply means "I prefer to spend almost £100 per year for bagged compost, manure, topsoil and mulch over sacrificing the space in my garden". The same goes for buying ready meals over cooking or hiring people to do something that I could do myself. Different people do different choices, deal with it. You probably wouldn't want my garden and I wouldn't want yours. It's good that we live in such a time that we have these choices.
Regarding peat-free compost, its water retention properties get significantly better when you mix it with a little bit of manure and bagged topsoil. Not much, something like 80:10:10 is good enough.
We have a tourist attraction down here, I expect most of you know it, Lost Gardens of Heligan, but for those who don’t, they would grow pineapples for the ‘House’ table.
Theres a long container, looks like cold frame, full length, butted up against the GH, they would keep filling it with horse muck from the stables and it would smoke with heat, pineapple grew in the GH.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Ive bought several bags of peat free compost (growmoor multi purpose) and used it in containers where it has been a disaster.
That really does surprise me & makes me feel a bit of an idiot. Growmoor Peat-Free (with added seaweed) is the best we've used since the old New Horizon (before Westland stole the name). This is an example of the produce I've grown in it (and yes the cucumbers are supposed to be mini).
These are the hanging baskets my wife has made with it.
Most of the stuff we used was last year's stock which we bought for £2.99 for 50L but this year's (which we've used some of) was £4.99, both from Home Bargains. I hope it's not this year's stock that's the issue.
Edit: This is the stuff
No it's definitely not that one! Mine has no added seaweed
Thanks so much everyone- i thought it was just me! Which.co.uk would have ypu believe peat free is fantastic.
Ive now bought several bags of organic manure to mix with it and ive put some old compost into a big plastic bin where ive also put some fruit, veg, brown paper/card and leaves. It will take a few weeks i guess. Im also trying to work out whether i could 'repurpose' a trough and just use that for rejuvenating it.
An actual compost heap is a great idea in theory but a hassle. Ive got a bin but its too far out if the way and i dont know how to use it. Maybe a wormery instead? Or a series of bins/boxes at various stages with compost ingredients mixed in? Sonething a novice can do.
Interesting comment about the manufactured nature of it too - its just another made up product thats not as good as the real thing. God knows whether it will ever break down into something more useable.
I don’t make my own compost and I suspect a lot of posters on here don’t either and it seems a shame that we are being fobbed off with poor quality products. Hopefully it will improve over time and we will learn to live with it.
That said my local GC has Humax compost clearly marked as old stock old formula when it’s gone it’s gone. £7.99 for 60 litres. I bought 20 bags and will be going back for more if I can and it’s wonderful.
An actual compost heap is a great idea in theory but a hassle.
Maybe set to become more of a hassle after the media stirring it up yesterday about spontaneously-combusting 'compost heaps'. Insurance companies will soon not only be asking us whether we live in a flood-risk area but also if we own one of these supposed fire risks
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
Posts
I'm very fortunate that I have space for 3 large heaps and a bin, I do appreciate that others don't have that facility.
Admittedly getting rid of the bigger stuff is harder. In your case if you'd advertised it for free someone would have taken it.
We use dried twigs and branches as kindling for lighting the stove in Winter, some is also thrown in a heap because the wildlife love it and the rest is mulched.
Before now I just burned it along with dried up weeds and put the ash on the compost heap. You have to be careful when you burn it (and that's if you actually can where you live). Obviously Nov 5th is prime time, but any dark filthy winters eve is ok for a fire for most people.
If you compost right your heap should get up to 65c which should in theory kill seeds. You'd need to turn once or more though. You can by hot bins and rotary composters if you want to go all the way, but that's costing more £££.
I know it isn't in most peoples range, but excitingly i'm learning hot composting with a view to heating my greenhouse in Winter. You know the best material for a good, hot and long lasting compost? Shredded woody stuff.
Then we'll have Winter veg and also a longer growing season in Summer.
The same goes for buying ready meals over cooking or hiring people to do something that I could do myself.
Different people do different choices, deal with it. You probably wouldn't want my garden and I wouldn't want yours. It's good that we live in such a time that we have these choices.
Regarding peat-free compost, its water retention properties get significantly better when you mix it with a little bit of manure and bagged topsoil. Not much, something like 80:10:10 is good enough.
Theres a long container, looks like cold frame, full length, butted up against the GH, they would keep filling it with horse muck from the stables and it would smoke with heat, pineapple grew in the GH.
An actual compost heap is a great idea in theory but a hassle. Ive got a bin but its too far out if the way and i dont know how to use it. Maybe a wormery instead? Or a series of bins/boxes at various stages with compost ingredients mixed in? Sonething a novice can do.
down into something more useable.
Maybe set to become more of a hassle after the media stirring it up yesterday about spontaneously-combusting 'compost heaps'. Insurance companies will soon not only be asking us whether we live in a flood-risk area but also if we own one of these supposed fire risks
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful