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Homemade compost full of seeds / weeds
Peanuts3
Posts: 759
I had my first attempt at making compost and used some product which speeds up the process. I don't turn it every week which I guess I probably should.
Anyway I sifted a whole bin's worth and put it on the garden. It looked great, however all I seem to have done is spread a trail of seeds throughout my garden. I'm going through and hoeing them all off. I've been really good with not putting any perennial weeds in the bin, as I put them in my brown bin.
All i can think it could be could be verbena bonariensis seeds.
Is this normal for compost, what should I do differently for the next batch ? Any advice gratefully received.
thank you.
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Posts
Unless you always add the same stuff, at the same time , in the same quantities, your compost is always going to be different. Sometimes you'll get a perfect batch, sometimes weeds get through.
Try to keep the balance of nitrogen ( green fresh stuff) and Carbon, (Twiggy bits and newpaper/ cardboard etc ) and you shouldn't have a problem. Easier said than done, but keep at it.
I often get verbena bonariensis cropping up in the veg patch after spreading compost there - also aquilegia and foxgloves. I just transplant them into the flower borders
I'm like getting out there before breakfast with my hoe, just 'tickling' the soil surface - I love the sound a hoe makes in the early morning as the birds are singing - it's proper gardening
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
ah okay then, that makes me feel good, that that is just how it is and I haven't messed up. phew.
I have this image of weed free soil round my plants, I think I need to make the hoe my best friend.
Thank you.
Last year I had loads of baby tomatoes growing in a flower bed! I'd put rotten tomatoes in the compost. I also had a butternut squash growing on the compost heap that I hadn't sown.
I always get tomatoes popping up and last year I had a Crown Prince squash among the runner beans - we've only just finished eating the produce from it! I've also got an avocado tree growing between the compost heaps - it's survived the winter
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
apparently they always find tomatoes growing around sewage plants as they survive human digestion.
when I left school in 1979 and started working in a GC, I asked my manager which was the best weedkiller: " a stainless steel hoe" wise words, never forgotten.
Hear hear!!!
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.