How best to dispose of this garden waste?

SocialSpud

What is the best way to dispose of the garden waste attached? There are nettles, rushes, gorse and brambles in here. This is just a photo of a small bit, there's a lot more. I don't have a brown bin or compost so I was if there's any other way to get properly dispose of this waste? There is a unused field next to the field I'm clearing out but I assume it wouldn't be a good idea to throw it in there either as it can spread.

Photo: https://i.imgur.com/iOOBBwR.jpg

SocialSpud

Photo

mutjack

Best thing to do is order a small mixed skip then you can also dispose of any other rubbish you want to get rid of

NIAC Fanboy

Your local recycling centre will probably take it.

Hocus Focus

Now is your chance to start making compost to improve your planting beds or just the soil generally. If you don't know how to make compost there is plenty of information online. Pay heed to the advice to mix "brown" and "green" materials in the ratio of 2:1.
You don't need to buy any expensive equipment, (except perhaps a small shredder for the woody stuff) all you need is five pallets stood on their sides and tied together to form the shape of the letter 'E'. Pile your compost in one section and when it has begun to decompose somewhat , turn it over into the other side and start off a new pile in the first section. If you make enough you'll need two more pallets to enclose the bins entirely. It looks like you are in a rural location with a decent sized garden, in which case the materials will be abundant and the effort worthwhile.
Alternatively, you could just do what I've seen in countless places around the country when hedgerows etc are cleaned up etc.; pile it up and when it's dry, put a match to it.

looksee

If you have space to leave it in a heap, gorse especially but also brambles will reduce in volume considerably in about 6 months. You then still have to get rid of the solid stuff - gorse branches etc - but there will be significantly less of it. Gorse and brambles can be shredded after they have dried out for a bit, but its a bit of a foostery job, the resulting chopped mulch is useful though.

You would need a very big compost bin with a lot of stuff in it to compost any of the stuff you have listed. We have a 'compost bin' that started as a kind of Hugelkultur ( https://www.permaculturenews.org/2012/01/04/hugelkultur-composting-whole-trees-with-ease ) bed, about 3m x 5m and about a meter high that has had trees, branches, brambles, grass clippings, weeds, nettle roots piled into it over the past 12 months or so and it is collapsing down nicely, though we will not be investigating it for compost for another couple of years minimum. Its growing a fine crop of nettles at the moment! We keep chucking stuff onto it and it doesn't get any bigger as it is rotting away. You do need a good bit of space for that though.

SocialSpud

Thanks everyone for the advice. Any opinions on a hotbin? Main reasoning for that vs an open heap is that I also plan on composting potato and carrot peels, fruit etc. and don't want to attract rats to it.

magicbastarder

you'd really need to be producing a *lot* of potato and carrot peel for it to be an issue. i mean, restaurant levels.

49801

Hire a walk behind mulcher
https://www.agriexpo.online/prod/rotadairon/product-175700-77085.html

looksee

I don't think raw veg peelings would attract rats any more than weeds and other green stuff. Its things like bread, meat scraps etc that will attract rats. They also like the warmth. Though there are going to be rats whatever you do and even if you don't have a compost heap at all.

Jim_Hodge

Domestic levels of vegetable waste won't be an issue. Make sure the heap is moist and avoid cooked foods. I'm composting over 35 years and never had vermin in the compost bin although, being rural, there has been a very occasional rat about the garden (Once every ten years or so only).

Hocus Focus

SocialSpud wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the advice. Any opinions on a hotbin? Main reasoning for that vs an open heap is that I also plan on composting potato and carrot peels, fruit etc. and don't want to attract rats to it.

Rats won't be attracted to vegetable waste provided it has not been contaminated with traces of meat, fish etc., or cooked veg. They can smell a tiny quantity of meat from a considerable distance.

49801

Just to those who believe that just Kitchen peelings etc in the compost don’t attract rats I can testify to the contrary.

Recent thread
https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2058184244/1

SocialSpud

I think I'll give the open heap a try and see what happens.

Jim_Hodge

49801 wrote: »

Just to those who believe that just Kitchen peelings etc in the compost don’t attract rats I can testify to the contrary.

Recent thread
https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2058184244/1

I'm sorry but that is exceptional. There should be no need for those measures. That would be so awkward for lifting the bin and turning the heap every few weeks. There has to be an underlying reason for the rodent problem there - conditions within the bin or a rat issue nearby. Compost bins do not inherently lead to vermin problems.

Hocus Focus

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

I'm sorry but that is exceptional. There should be no need for those measures. That would be so awkward for lifting the bin and turning the heap every few weeks. There has to be an underlying reason for the rodent problem there - conditions within the bin or a rat issue nearby. Compost bins do not inherently lead to vermin problems.

I think when the compost is warm and dry the rats find it comfortable and it's better to leave the lid off, at least some of the time.
We life in a rural location and had a general infestation of rats, but what was chiefly attracting them was the fallout from the bird feeders. When we got rid of them and laid some poison in the right places, the rats disappeared.

Jim_Hodge

Hocus Focus wrote: »

I think when the compost is warm and dry the rats find it comfortable and it's better to leave the lid off, at least some of the time.
We life in a rural location and had a general infestation of rats, but what was chiefly attracting them was the fallout from the bird feeders. When we got rid of them and laid some poison in the right places, the rats disappeared.

That's my point. I said on the thread referred to that the heap was probably too dry. Moisture levels should be a minimum of 40% by weight. It also can't be turned too often with how it is set up. The damage to the bin is secondary, I think, to a rat problem near by.

SocialSpud

What are people's general consensus? Open heap, cold or hot compost bin?

macraignil

My own preference is to stack up material like that in small compost heaps out of the way under shrubs and trees. It breaks down fairly slowly but I think it makes good habitat for wildlife in the garden and slowly builds up better soil by acting like a mulch if you have the space.

SocialSpud

macraignil wrote: »

My own preference is to stack up material like that in small compost heaps out of the way under shrubs and trees. It breaks down fairly slowly but I think it makes good habitat for wildlife in the garden and slowly builds up better soil by acting like a mulch if you have the space.

How about food waste like potato, carrot peels, teabags and fruit? Would you ever be afraid that they'd attract rats if just left out?

macraignil

SocialSpud wrote: »

How about food waste like potato, carrot peels, teabags and fruit? Would you ever be afraid that they'd attract rats if just left out?

I just avoid leaving meat related waste in the garden and have not had any problem from drawing rats when I throw out the vegetable scraps. There sometimes are crows that pick about the heap I use for the kitchen waste but they also pick out pests from the lawn area and are in the garden area regularly anyway. We do have farm cats from the yard next door that hunt in the garden so rodents are not a problem anyway.

Hocus Focus

SocialSpud wrote: »

How about food waste like potato, carrot peels, teabags and fruit? Would you ever be afraid that they'd attract rats if just left out?

That's all just the same as garden waste and will break down in the same way. Just because it comes from what we call "food" doesn't make it any different, as long as we have not altered it an any way, such as partially cooking it, or contaminating it with juices or blood from meats etc.
You can also add a quantity grass cuttings to your garden compost, as long as you also add twice the quantity of shredded hedge clippings and other brown waste, such as unbleached paper and cardboard. With care, a reasonable amount of tissue paper such as kitchen towels and wiping paper can also be included.
Just make sure no cooked food waste goes in.

SocialSpud

Hocus Focus wrote: »

That's all just the same as garden waste and will break down in the same way. Just because it comes from what we call "food" doesn't make it any different, as long as we have not altered it an any way, such as partially cooking it, or contaminating it with juices or blood from meats etc.
You can also add a quantity grass cuttings to your garden compost, as long as you also add twice the quantity of shredded hedge clippings and other brown waste, such as unbleached paper and cardboard. With care, a reasonable amount of tissue paper such as kitchen towels and wiping paper can also be included.
Just make sure no cooked food waste goes in.

Cheers. I currently don't have a lawn, just keep back some nettles and brambles around the house but not enough to regularly add to an open heap. That's why I wondered if I should even go down the open heap road if I don't have that much waste. Most of the waste will be veg peelings and cardboard from Amazon.

Hocus Focus

SocialSpud wrote: »

Cheers. I currently don't have a lawn, just keep back some nettles and brambles around the house but not enough to regularly add to an open heap. That's why I wondered if I should even go down the open heap road if I don't have that much waste. Most of the waste will be veg peelings and cardboard from Amazon.

You could use random bits of scrap timber , small branches etc., to make a small enclosure, but if that's not possible it will all break down into humus eventually even in a small open heap, that's all my mother had and it produced a decent amount of compost.

homer911

Hocus Focus wrote: »

Now is your chance to start making compost to improve your planting beds or just the soil generally. If you don't know how to make compost there is plenty of information online. Pay heed to the advice to mix "brown" and "green" materials in the ratio of 2:1.
You don't need to buy any expensive equipment, (except perhaps a small shredder for the woody stuff) all you need is five pallets stood on their sides and tied together to form the shape of the letter 'E'. Pile your compost in one section and when it has begun to decompose somewhat , turn it over into the other side and start off a new pile in the first section. If you make enough you'll need two more pallets to enclose the bins entirely. It looks like you are in a rural location with a decent sized garden, in which case the materials will be abundant and the effort worthwhile.
Alternatively, you could just do what I've seen in countless places around the country when hedgerows etc are cleaned up etc.; pile it up and when it's dry, put a match to it.

Dammit, thats so obvious reading it here, now I know what I've been doing wrong. That will be the next DIY job.

spookwoman

Just a note on brambles and leaving them in a heap, the buggers root and then you have to clear them from that spot. Best option would be bring to your local council waste amenity site. I know my local one 2 160L bags (car load with seats down) was €10. A brown bin is 140l and costs €5 to get rid of through kirbside. services.

Cut them up into about 4 to 6inch long bits that means you can get more in the bags / bin

SocialSpud

spookwoman wrote: »

Just a note on brambles and leaving them in a heap, the buggers root and then you have to clear them from that spot. Best option would be bring to your local council waste amenity site. I know my local one 2 160L bags (car load with seats down) was €10. A brown bin is 140l and costs €5 to get rid of through kirbside. services.

Cut them up into about 4 to 6inch long bits that means you can get more in the bags / bin

Surely of you leave them out to dry and go brown they die and can't root?

spookwoman

SocialSpud wrote: »

Surely of you leave them out to dry and go brown they die and can't root?

I thought so too but have found places where I didn't fully remove the waste some rooted.

Jim_Hodge

SocialSpud wrote: »

Surely of you leave them out to dry and go brown they die and can't root?

Some will root. The RHS recommends shredding or burning.

hirondelle

Jim_Hodge wrote: »

Some will root. The RHS recommends shredding or burning.

For clarity, it is illegal to burn waste in Ireland- including garden waste. There is a derogation for farmers for hedge cuttings but they have to apply to the local council for permission. I appreciate it isn't a nuisance issue if you live in the countryside, but just saying it as if somebody were to object you could actually be fined.