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| Hi all,
I just started composting (yay!). I'm mainly composting kitchen scraps for the greens and random paper stuff for the browns (napkins, junk mail, copies of patient records lol). I plan to incorporate the compost in my vegetable containers in the Spring. It just occurred to me, if I'm composting vegetable seeds in my kitchen scraps, should I be worried about these germinating in my veggie planters? I don't know yet if I'll be able to have a "hot" pile that will kill the seeds. Thank you!
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Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by toxcrusadr 5 (My Page) on Wed, Nov 21, 12 at 15:57
| Yes, they can. The usual culprits are tomatoes and anything from the curcurbit family - melons, squash and cukes. If you don't mind pulling up a few volunteers, they usually aren't that much of a problem. About the only thing you can do besides hot composting is to make a separate pile, or wet them and let them germinate, then bury the sprouts in the compost. But this doesn't work very well in winter. |
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| Once it warms up in the spring, turn your pile. Some of the seeds will start to grow. Turn it again and you'll compost the sprouts. I get plants trying to grow near the top of my piles all the time. I hit them with the shovel and dig them under. |
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- Posted by gawdinfever z5b/St. Louis, MO (My Page) on Thu, Nov 22, 12 at 0:41
| Uh, Yeah! I had store-bought canteloupe seeds dumped in the compost pile last year, and let them grow to 'see what happened'.... We had 14lb canteloupe grow from about 6lb melons. |
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- Posted by purpleinopp 8b AL (My Page) on Thu, Nov 22, 12 at 9:08
| Volunteer veggie plants are easy to pull although I usually leave them alone. Whether you pull it sooner or later, that's more good greens for future compost. I don't worry about this at all and hope many volunteer veggie plants show up wherever they want. |
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