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Too many weeds, discouraged
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Posted by
dottyinduncan z8b coastal BC (
My Page) on
Wed, Jun 1, 11 at 21:01
| Emptied our compost boxes a week ago and now there's just too many weeds growing everywhere! I left one wheelbarrow full of the compost and keep turning it over but it seems that it is just full of sprouting seeds. Obviously, it has been cold composted but it is hardly worth making compost if it creates this many weeds. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Pull those weeds before they flower and add to the next compost. They will come out easily from the composted soil. Over time you will deplete the weed seed bank and get fewer and fewer weeds in your compost and your garden. Weeding is a little and often job. There is no quick fix, just patience. Composting didn't create the weeds - the seeds were in your yard already and composting facilitated their germination. Please don't be discouraged - it IS worth composting and the weed problem will reduce over time. Good luck. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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Often after I have applied some compost to my planting beds I cover that compost, so the sun does not dry it out, with newspaper and shredded leaves and if there are still viable "weed" seeds in there they do not germinate, or if they do the lack of sunlight causes them to die.
Few people make enough compost to properly cover the soil, about 4 inches thick, and anyway that compost will dry out and the bacteria that work that compoat into the soil stop working. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| It's not so horrible, just keep removing the weeds as they sprout. Get a stirrup hoe or something to make it easier, so you don't have to bend down, and just carry that around with you as you walk in your garden. You can hoe the weeds and leave them where they fall. Next time when you make compost, don't put in any weed flowers or seed heads. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Weeds make the next batch of compost. If you cover the compost layer with a layer of shredded leaves or shredded wood chips it helps keep the weeds from germinating. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Thanks for the encouragement. Unfortunately, I've top dressed a lot of things with this compost so weeds are coming up everywhere. I'll just have to keep at it... |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| It does sound frustrating! Do you remember if you put weeds that had gone to seed in your compost? If you're cold composting, it's really important to make sure the weeds you're composting don't have seeds. When all I had was cold composters, I made sure to just throw away any seeds that had flowers even, to make darn sure. I'm guessing that might be what happened. Don't give up on composting! Just try to be dilligent about what you put in and your next result will probably be better. ...oh, and kids make great weeders. Have any handy? When mine were smaller, we made it a game of fighting the mean, nasty weeds that were invading the garden. With the right attitude, they even had fun. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Never compost weeds with seeds, and if you add soil to your compost from your garden it may have weeds in that soil, therefore if you keep weed seeds out of your pile, your compost will not have weeds. But, hot composting won't kill weed seeds. They are too tough. It may kill some of them, it is supposed to blah blah, but in real life weeds seeds in the compost means tons of new weeds in your garden. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| It's interesting what's growing. Tomatoes and squash are popping up everywhere! Not to mention grass and just regular weeds. If I kept all of these things out of the compost there wouldn't be much in it. I think I'm going to have to reconsider composting and try harder to get it to heat up. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| The only seeds that go in my compost pile are from kitchen scraps so I occasionally have a potato or squash growing. Easy to pull in the compost pile. Weeds and crabgrass go in a separate pile and a tarp placed over. That pile is getting bigger and bigger - with all the rain we've had it's difficult to keep up with the weeding but I get at least one wheelbarrow load a day. I plan to leave it tarped for a long time, probably til next year and hopefully the weed seeds and grasses will be decomposed. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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...oh, and kids make great weeders. Have any handy?
LOLOL Cando! I used to have to pick a bucket of weeds before I could run off and play on weekends as a kid!
I made sure to pick some long grasses and bend them over to fill the bucket, then pick a few weeds to cover them, making the bucket LOOK full! LOL Unfortunately, that only worked a couple of times! Had to do double weeding after that! LOLOLO |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| We no longer put tomatoes in the compost for that very reason. I trash them. I'll compost other veggie scraps, tomato leaves and stems, but no tomatoes. They are like bad weeds, they grow anywhere. With weeds, just trash the seed heads and compost the rest of the plant. Karen |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| If you're not planting new seeds, you can always apply some corn gluten meal as a pre-emergent. It stops the seeds from developing a proper root system and they die before they can grow. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Nancyjane, your parents were genius. Guess what new rule I will be instituting this weekend? |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Where can one get corn gluten? Does this work for all weeds? |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| msirie, Garden's Alive carries it but you could try local feed stores or just google 'pre-emergent corn gluten' to find other sources. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Gardens Alive WOW
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| I get corn gluten meal from a local feed store, as haname suggested, and at a very reasonable price (much less than you'd pay from GA, with shipping). Gary |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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Weeds don't just pop up without some cause to bring them about. And one thing you mention....tomatoes, is one thing that should never make it to the compost pile.
There's still tomatoes around that went through Tyransaurus Rex. Tomato seeds don't die...they wait for inexperienced gardeners to add them to compost piles where they are nurtured and soon, the fruit appear. You evidently put other seeds into the pile--you probably feed your compost pile in the fall when the seeds are all about us. Fluffy dandelions deserve any other place other than our composts. Other weed seeds flourish in the fall---so avoid the putting into your pile anything whose foliage still has its seed pods. That's the invite you are experiencing and once there, they are a devil to exterminate. You could try killing what you see with hot water or burn them with a torch. That wont harm the effectiveness of the pile. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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- Posted by pt03 2b Southern Manitob (My Page) on
Wed, Jun 15, 11 at 22:18
Weeds suck, and spreading them around via compost sucks more. This is one reason some people would rather not be bothered with backyard composting at all. Valid PoV no matter what us whackos enthusiasts think/say. I do know I've put thousands of tomato plants, as well as seeds, into the windrows and have never seen a seedling germinate in the finished compost. I'm guessing 150+F over a few weeks/months with regular turning followed by curing of more than a year terminates them effectively, just like all the manuals say. I have seen some contamination of seeds when the compost is handled with the machinery working on a soil base, but short of putting down a concrete pad there isn't much I can do 'bout that. (maybe Jon will lend me Kenny for a couple of weeks??) ;-) Lloyd |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| Just like Lloyd, I compost everything that comes out of my garden and that would mean,about a million tomato seeds, and I have had maybe 100 or so germinate... that's it, piece of cake , and they go right back into the compost pile as a green, it is great growing greens for the pile, I think the difference is, I have raised beds (most are 2' tall) so ....easy pickings when I do find a weed, no muss,no fuss. When you eventually get your compost/mulch really thick and fluffy, they pull out sooooo easily, keep working on the soil,you'll get there. Check out the link below, to see my soil ;-) 
 |
Here is a link that might be useful: Jon's Wonderful Soil 2010
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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- Posted by jolj 7b/8a-S.C.,USA (My Page) on
Sat, Jun 18, 11 at 22:52
First thing is to much the compost in the beds, to kill the weeds.
I just planted my late tomatoes, 7 of them are from last years fruit. I have no ideal what I will get.
I also spent about an hour digging up the runners around the edge of my raised beds. The runners are from Bahia grass.
I will trade a few billion seeds/seedling for my Bahia grass any day & twice on Sunday!!
Well, it was planted by my father, for hay. Now I have to fight it off or go nonorganic to kill it.
I am making head way, but it is slooooowwwwwww going. |
RE: Too many weeds, discouraged
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| I used to always dig in my homemade compost because it had weed seeds in it. I would use compost that I bought or other materials for mulch. Now that I do better at hot composting, I use my homemade stuff for mulch. I try not to put tomatoes or pumpkin or any weed seeds in it because those will survive and sprout. Some get in, but not enough to be a problem. |
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