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Mint in compost bin
QPootle
Posts: 12
Hi there! I don't post here often but love reading all the latest threads. I'm hoping you'll have some advice for me as to what to do with my compost. A couple of months ago, I put an old, pot-bound, woody mint plant in the compost bin and reused the pot for something else. (It looks lovely now, with a lollypop pruned rosemary, underplanted with cyclamen.) Well, I recently read some advice that you should drown mint before adding it to your garden compost or put it in the council brown bin. Should I just give up on this compost and start again?
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Posts
Have a look inside. If it's full of growing mint roots you might be wise to start again
In the sticks near Peterborough
I agree with nutculet.
I did have a dig around a week ago nutcutlet, but so much has gone in since it went in I can't tell what's what. It's so frustrating because it's a full bin and a whole year's worth of goodness is brewing in there! Any tips for identifying mint roots?!
Don't throw it out! Worse comes to worse you have to pull out a few random mint plants from your boarders. They are easy to recognize at early growth, IF they do survive. As you spread your compost, just pull out any white roots you find. I think you'll be fine.
Do be careful as it can grow from a 1cm piece of root.
I agree with Blue Onion - don't panic
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm with Blue Onion and Dove: no need to panic.
It's easily spotted by the white roots ,, so I'd just chuck them back into the "new" compost bin and if it does make it through, it's easily spotted and dug up .
There are only 2 things I don't compost , ground elder and bindweed, everything else goes in there.
As above but I dont compost creeping buttercups or anything to do with tomatoes, they come up everywhere in the borders.
Phew! Thanks for the reassurance, Blue Onion, Dove and Lyn. I'll make sure I sort through it all carefully when it goes on the borders next year and keep an eye out for white roots. I just spread a whole bin on last year's compost on my super dusty (rubbish, Norfolk soil) south facing border this week, and it's such a good feeling to have produced all that goodness from our own kitchen and garden waste. Now I have that whole bin to start filling