Re: compost and weeds

Hi Kay and all,

I feel like the New England's Compost Queen again!!!!
LOL!

Yup..Kay, you are right!!!!
If I use MY compost, I do get weed seeds.  They are cold compost piles,
meaning that they do not heat up much, and take a couple of years to break
down to use.  If they were in sun, and I turned them, watered them, and had
the proper Carbon to Nitrogen ratio (that is day stuff and green stuff) and
aeration, they would probably kill the weed seeds.  So I am careful when I
makemy compost, that I will NOT put in a few things.  CHICKWEED, BISHOPS
WEED and MINT get put aside and doused with roundup, whenever.

I have also found that when bringing in plants, that I somehow always
introduce new weeds.  Right now I am fighting that blue flowering thing,
something like Va bells????? that has knots in the stems?  This was not part
of the original invironment, so came in somehow to several areas here and
pulling it does not help!

Back to the compost...

The stuff I buy sometimes comes steaming.  Not good for fresh planting, but
OK for topdressing which I did 4 yds of today....and I know that I will not
be getting weed seeds there!!!  In fact, as it was dumped, I was first
depressed, thinking , shoot, it is steaming - will it hurt the new/old
plantings of daylilies where I was appyling it 2 inches????
HA!
Then I thought...well of course not...it will be cooling down very fast in
this cool weather
with only a topdressing...and any heat will probably help them think that
winter is not here yet! (it isn't as we have only had a light frost so far -
the ocean helps the autumn here)
I would not plant new things in it this fresh though.  During the spring and
summer it doesn't arrive like this...but they are turning and sending it in
very fast right now.

I hired someone to wheel the barrows to me, and I shoveled it out, and
lightly raked.  To do this, the leaves had been cut back and the bed was
fairly clean.  I say fairly, because I just don't have the heart to pull all
my forget me nots for their lovely spring color. I was not careful of them,
as I know that any covered will just respond with the food they just got!
I used all the four yds this Sat and the4 yds last Sat and wish time was not
running out, so that I could do more.

The reason I do this topdressing is to feed, level out the beds that have
been heavily dug into for sales, relocation of plants etc.

Ok...so I carry on a bit about compost!  ' love the stuff!'

Bobbie


>With all this discussion of compost, I haven't heard any mention of weeds.
I
>always compost my leaves, vegetative material and use it on my garden when
I
>can.  It's great stuff, but I am always plagued with chickweed about two
>weeks after I use it.  Don't any of you have a problem with weeds in your
>compost?
>Kay Dye, Edelstein, zone 5
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