Used Tea and Coffee Bags are great slug deterrants. I pop them around the lettuce in pots, but keep them damp. Talking cats (which I know you weren't!) they hate the smell of wet tea bags.
I used to put tea bags in my wormery but they seem to take ages to break down. I'm fed up with getting them on the prongs of the garden fork! For the last few years I have been splitting them and just putting the tea leaves in.
If the bags aren't rotting in a month or three they're plastic and they won't. You'll need to tear them open or change your brand of tea.
Friend of mine, on whose allotment I used to help, used not only non-biodegradeable tea bags but also supposedly biodegradeable plastic bags to line her kitchen compost bin. I was forever finding large chunks of them unrotted in the otherwise mature heap. They only rot properly in a big hot heap such as council centres can produce.
I didn't know about some tea bags being plastic! We've just used the contents in our compost bins for years now. Some are kept intact - soak them in Jeyes fluid - cats hate it! Other cat deterrents include moth balls and strong curry powder sprinkled around! None of these harm the cats as far as I'm aware.
Can't agree with the Curry Powder thread - Boots the Bengal munches his way through the Curry Plant Bushes and is keen on Jalfreezi! I've never heard of plastic tea bags either - Do you mean those outers that contain tea that you put in Expresso Machines?
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Used Tea and Coffee Bags are great slug deterrants. I pop them around the lettuce in pots, but keep them damp. Talking cats (which I know you weren't!) they hate the smell of wet tea bags.
I used to put tea bags in my wormery but they seem to take ages to break down. I'm fed up with getting them on the prongs of the garden fork! For the last few years I have been splitting them and just putting the tea leaves in.
Ours go onto the compost heap with the potato peelings,cabbage etc odds and ends, well rotted before the compost is used.
If the bags aren't rotting in a month or three they're plastic and they won't. You'll need to tear them open or change your brand of tea.
Friend of mine, on whose allotment I used to help, used not only non-biodegradeable tea bags but also supposedly biodegradeable plastic bags to line her kitchen compost bin. I was forever finding large chunks of them unrotted in the otherwise mature heap. They only rot properly in a big hot heap such as council centres can produce.
Steve, I remember reading an article, in The Garden which mentioned the removal of non rotting liners of kitchen bins from compost bins.
" it's like fishing a dead body from a canal using a boat hook"
Wonderful image.
Simple answer to the teabag issue is to use coffee grounds
I didn't know about some tea bags being plastic! We've just used the contents in our compost bins for years now. Some are kept intact - soak them in Jeyes fluid - cats hate it! Other cat deterrents include moth balls and strong curry powder sprinkled around! None of these harm the cats as far as I'm aware.
Can't agree with the Curry Powder thread - Boots the Bengal munches his way through the Curry Plant Bushes and is keen on Jalfreezi! I've never heard of plastic tea bags either - Do you mean those outers that contain tea that you put in Expresso Machines?