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Soil, Compost & Mulch

Question about composting weeds

16 years ago

On my daily commute I noticed that there are alot of thisles and sunflowers in clumps along the side of the road, along with other tall grasses and some fern-like weeds. This seems to me to be a great place to gather some green material for composting along with alot of newspaper.

Of obvious concern would be the that plants are all 'weeds' right?

Would it be a bad idea to harvest this stuff for composting?

If this comprised the entirety of the green in the pile would I be yanking thistles out of my compost pile?

any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers!

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Comments (3)

seedmama
16 years ago
reaver, my first thought was "how creative!" You don't say whether the land mentioned is easement or belongs to a private owner. My second thought is in Texas you could get in trouble for pulling "weeds" on the easement because they may be the only thing preventing erosion. Something to consider.
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reaver
Original Author
16 years ago
seedmama, I am pretty sure its on easment property as the plants are lining highways and surface roads.

There is a major expansion to a state highway being constructed which has churned up the land around the construction. The 5+ foot grasses, ferns, sunflowers and thistles are only growing because of the construction efforts and the city/county comes out semi-regularly to mow it back from the road side because the stuff threatens to overhang the existing roadway. And there are literally miles of the stuff, bordering the farmland and bedroom communities along the highway.

I wasn't thinking about pulling them, just cutting the plant back then cutting off the head where the seeds may be and stuffing the foliage in a bag to take home. I don't think erosion is much of a concern, as I am not going to cut back any more than they already do when they mow the sites.

Cheers!
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The greens I use include bunny manure from a friend who raises rabbits (but I only use manures on my non-root crop beds), stale flours/crackers/cornmeals from the cupboard (this is an infrequent addition but occasionally something in the cupboard goes off, and it is a fine green), used coffee grounds, kitchen scraps, and shredded green yard waste. I occasionally bring in free rotted manure from a local ranch, but only for the non-root crops, as mentioned. Manure is low on my list of materials, but can undeniably provide bulk and nitrogen. Whether you layer weeds or not depends on what sorts of weeds they are (no to anything like bermuda grass, possibly yes to things like dandelions that have not gone to seed). I do purposefully let some good weeds grow, at the community garden, because they are ones that are easily controlled, and they have tap roots, so I know they are bringing nutrients up from several feet underground. We have a mallow that I partiucularly like, for this purpose. If you layer them directly, remember they will turn to a brown if they are just sitting exposed to the sun. I put most weeds at home into the compost, in the middle of a hot pile. Some people layer their actual garden *plants* at the end of the season, although I prefer to compost them a bit first. I agree that doing a few beds at a time is a good way to go. You can learn what works for you on one or two beds, this year or next year, and then scale up from there.
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Sorry.. I'm short sighted and unfortunately, did not read my response thoroughly. I had meant to say that you need not have to over think the process of composting. Just follow the formula of brown and green layering and mixing things up every now and then. It's the bacteria and earthworms that will do the job. Once you have made a pile that is tall enough, start another pile. After a few months, the first pile should be ready to use. Another form of composting is the lasagna method which is to bury the material in the ground and then plant directly beside it. As the plant matter decomposes, the live plants benefit from this. (however one does have to think about creatures it may attract that can be detrimental to the live plant. )
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pablo_nh
16 years ago
Yes- you would have to be very wary of seeds. I don't collect leaves or compostables from very high traffic areas because I know what kind of car exhaust/soot may be on the surfaces (from looking at the snowbanks in the winter).

That's probably overly cautious- but it's sort of a turnoff when I think about it.
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