Start a hot pile.

Here is a link to a recent thread where I asked what it took to kill the weed seeds and other bad things. Blutranes gave an excellent answer.

I do mostly cold-composting as well; it doesn't get turned very often...maybe once every couple weeks from spring thru fall.
That having been said, it ALL goes in my pile. While I realize that there are some who prefer the scientific approach, I simply haven't got THAT much interest in the 'details' of my compost pile, and it all gets tossed in & buried.

Another point of my logic is: There's going to be weeds in my garden regardless of whether they came from my composting habits or not; I will forever be weeding my garden spaces, so it makes not a hill-of-beans difference to me. It's green, it's organic, it's going in my pile because what ELSE am I going to do with them?!

Cheers!

A couple of things you can try in addition to the above comments:
1. Cut the seed-bearing portion off of the weeds and compost the safe portion.
2. Make a "hazardous waste" pile for segregating off weeds with seeds, etc. This is more about consolidating and dealing with seed-laden debris then composting and keeps the stuff out of the landfill. I do this with some kinds of weeds. Whether you dare to use the end product of such a pile depends on your level of comfort with weeds.
3. For weeds where rhizomes or re-rooting are the problem and not seeds, you can dry them to death and then compost them.
4. You could burn the weeds and use the ash for various purposes.

Some also report success in letting them rot in water for an extended period- but it stinks to high heaven

I never do!!! But apparently other folks have had wonderful results with doing that, but I HAVE NOT.

Deanna

I do throw them in regular compost as well. I won't say that I never get weeds from my compost- mostly because I'm rarely that careful about maintaining a hot pile.

We have one especially hot compost bin (a Rubbermaid plastic job my brother gave me a few years ago) that heats up more than my pallet bins just from being so completely enclosed, greenhouse effect. We put our weedy-seedy things into that bin. But in the past I put weeds in our other compost as well, whomever said that one is always going to have to weed so what the heck is right on. As for keeping stuff out of the landfill, that isn't relevant for me, there is no way I would EVER put plant material in my trash. The only exception is bagged poison ivy.

Creeping charlie I put in a large plastic bag that is sealed up and I let it cook to death before composting it. Creeping charlies frightens me! When I found some in a flower bed a week or so afo I actually gasped in horror. :-) I put my other worst weed, quack grass, into the hot compost bin.

Marcia

Thanks everybody for all the input! I've never done a hot pile, it's something I might try one day. I guess it's true that my garden will have weeds anyway. i just wonder how much faster or more pervasively the weeds will grow in the bed with our without weed seeds in the compost bed! I guess you'd need a controlled experiment, maybe someone will feel like doing this one day!

Love,
Uma