Dealing with garden waste
Doogie72
Posts: 62
Hi there - this is my first time of posting - so excuse me if I've posted in the wrong place.
My husband and I have recently moved into a new house hich has a large garden (2/3 acre) and am hoping some of you can give me some suggestions of what to do with all the garden waste we're producing. The grass clippings alone more than fill our green wheelie bin. The garden has been quite neglected in recent years - so I have piles of weeds of all kinds, pond weeds prunings off trees and shrubs etc. I have 1 compost bin already full up - and i'm about to construct another one - but can't help thinking that could be full in a short time too!
I've got used to loading the car with garden debris and taking to the local sort it centre or compost site but I wondered if there were any useful things i could be doing to use some of this stuff on-site. Any suggestions welcome.
Posts
How is the garden for flower beds/patio/trees? No way will your compost bins and green bin cope with 2/3 of an acre of grass.
You could either
Im sure someone else will be along with better suggestions in a bit too!
If you have a lot of woody prunings then it will be worth investing in a shredder. The resulting chips can be left to rot down for a few months and then used as a mulch on the borders or they can be put on the compost heap, providing they are well mixed with greener things. If nothing else, a shredder makes the problem smaller.
If you have room for three compost bins, I find that gives the best results because two bins will be slowly rotting down whilst you are filling the third.
Why waste it all by putting it in a Wheelie Bin for the Council to Compost. In a garden of this size you almost certainly could find room for a set of three compost bins. Ours were made from 6 feet long 6 inch wide half logs. Everything except flowering weeds or persistent roots, goes in to them.
Dock roots, dandelions, couch, etc all go onto another pile called the Non-compost heap. This is covered with plastic sheeting and left to 'fester' for 5 years and has turned into really good compost in that time.
As said, woody material can be shredded and either used as mulch or added to the grass cuttings to aid decomposition.
I also use a shredder and compost everything. Once shredded, it's surprising how much the volume is reduced and if you mix it properly (20% soft green stuff like grass cuttings to 80% dry or woody material), it will compost down to a 1/4 of the shredded volume in as little as 2-3 months. The compost is then spread on my borders as a mulch. After doing this for many years my original clay soil is now wonderful stuff!
Thank you all for your suggestions so far. I certainly have space for a set of 3 compost bins so could do that. I thought i may use some old pallets to construct those providing I can get hold of some pallets. The garden isn't all grass - we have some mixed borders (well mostly woody shrubs actually) which we are gradually tidying up. There is also an area where we are having a veg patch (which I have set up a group of raised beds using some old compost that had been left in a heap by the previous owner - the neighbour confirmed that was good stuff to use) and theres is also already a patio area and a pond.
Are you going to leave your flower beds to see what surprises you get coming up.?
in the words of Alan Titchmarsh, " 2 things in your garden which can never be too big: your greenhouse and your compost bins.
I made about 20 - 30 tons of compost last year.
Contact local tree surgeons and ask them to drop round chippings they can't sell. This is what I did and it works a treat for us both. He doesn't have to pay to dump stuff , I get chippings to mix with grass clippings.
A big site is going to need a big compost heap. I don't know the old units or how much there is to compost so couldn't really advise on the rightsizing for your plot. The bigger you can make it the better and the faster things will rot down. 1 cubic metre is an absolute minimum for any significant retention of heat.
A Europallet (Eur-2 and Eur-3) is 1.2m x 1.0m, so you could build each bay a multiple of pallet width to suit the size of your garden. If your 120L, 240L or 360L wheelie bin isn't big enough to deal with your grass clippings then a 300 or so Litre composting bin (dalek) or 600L box bin isn't going to be much use to you either. I need about 4 which I think are 600L and I only have a small 300 sq m.garden.
Look for pallets with "Non-returnable" stamp, ask at building supplies merchants, truck stops- the others, notably the painted ones are leased..
Some councils will provide additional green waste wheelie bins and recyclates containers if you really need to get the materials off site. Personally I'm loathe to give anything away to the council or make unnecessary demands on their (ultimately our) budget.
You could bury some of your grass (no perennial weeds) for nitrogen hungry veg if you can't find enough carbonaceous material with which to compost it..
Sheds can never be big enough either, hostafan. Talking of Mr Titchmarsh, I'm just about to watch The Nature of Britain;Coastal Britain and Woodland Britain on iPlayer.Good series! Oh, when did Saturday nights go from rock 'n'roll to watching nature documentaries
Don't take it to the tip, you will need all the compost you can get for your veg. As said, you can just make a pile. The centre will get very hot, the outside will need to be removed as it will not have composted. Who cares if the pile is three metres tall. The result will be worth it. Or turn it, though that can be hard work. If you need bins, Primrose sell 900 litre bins for about 30 quid though to be honest you will fill one in no time. I have two full ones and my garden is a fraction of yours. I would just make piles and wait a few years. It will be fabulous compost. Grass rots quickly, woody stuff very slowly.
I have a Bosch shredder. It is brilliant for small branches and twigs, but for large quatities you need a big one, perhaps best hired when needed. The result makes brilliant mulch for flower beds and under hedges.
Regarding big branches, save them for a fire if you have a fireplace or stove. If not, give them to neighbours, stove owners are great scroungers and you'll win friends. Or barter the wood!