Compost heaps on overgrown allotment

Don't use it! I moved plot earlier in the year and inherited a huge "compost heap". When I got to dig into it I found it was full of all sorts of rubbish and all sorts of weeds (couch grass and bindweed). It took ages to sort through and lots ended up going to the tip. The stuff that I had spread is now just sprouting masses of weed seeds. I wish I hadn't used it. Proceed with caution. You know what you would compost but as you've discovered others aren't as selective.

Thank you - I've spent the last four years sharing a plot with our next door neighbour sharing grass seeds, thistles, nettles amongst other goodies including poppies which seed everywhere. But new people are now tending this plot just as we have been offered our new lottie. Our new site has a good crop of nettles - we think we have bind weed but this is all over the site. I've read somewhere that nettles grow well in acidic soil. We've just pulled out hundreds of flowering chickweeds but there is a purple flowering plant I can't identify yet which is all over the place. Lots of flowering dandelions and the grass clumps are starting to seed. We think we might have to cover the allotment with black plastic and are wondering if we can use the piles of compost as a kind of mulch with the plastic suppressing the weeds. Early days I think. The root system on the nettles is amazing and we are filling bin bags full of the stuff. And yes, there is most definitely couch grass. I think proceeding with caution is sound advice!

Save the nettles Dominic! Put it into a a container and drown it in water and you got brilliant fertilizer for nothing

I'm not an expert but I wonder if it was too dry for worms? Could you perhaps collect it into a neat and enclosed pile and give it a good watering? Then perhaps try to turn it a couple of times and it 'could' be useable next year.

I've usually got at least one weed heap on the go...everything goes on it. I'd not dream of using it on a relatively clear area but this year, I had a few neglected patches from last year, they are now covered in cardboard and then two/three year old 'weed compost'. There is now a 'lovely'(?) carpet of teeny weeny seedlings(I think bindweed) but what was underneath was just as bad and hopefully a bit of a hoe session will kill them off.

Of course, there is also the worry of what the other plotholder meant when he said 'he composted everything'...if that includednon organic matter, perhaps you need to think twice?

Dominic, I don't know the proper name but I'm guessing that your purple flowers are dead nettles, very shallow roots so a dead sinch to pull out, but for now a Godsend to bees. I leave them for as long as possible and don't even care if they go to seed.
As for the nettles, chop them down,ensuring you don't get any root and stick them straight on your compost (as well as making feed as Sarris suggests) So long as they have no seeds they make a great addition to your compost.

Dominic - this happened to me - vast compost heap on my plot circa 10 years old - it was the unused end of the allotment and all the others dumped their unwanted stuff here.

I did use it and have had no regrets. I filled raised beds with the compost and got fantastic crops the first year, but then my plot is solid clay so any rotted stuff is welcome. However I also used weed cover sheeting with heavy mulches, a hoe to keep down the seedlings and glyphosate spray to kill off the couch & bind weed. I dug hard to get rid of the trees and brambles. Its not organic, there was no option, and there is your real issue of choice.

Three years on its not really an issue but I do keep on top of it - I am next to untended land and have more issues from the seeds coming from there [and keep the weeds cut down when they get to seeding stage to protect my land].

One gift from this heap was the big bed of butternut squash I didn't plant and lot of chard that still pops up each year.

I too was very concerned about the lack of worms but they were there, just hiding as the land was not that wet at the time. With the exception of this year the land gets pretty wet in spring [flooded in places] so raised beds was the way forward. I accepted this plot as it had the means to make raised beds from the compost heap.

Mine plot was filled with rubbish, glass, carpet, bricks, old broken tools etc. This is how they used to manage allotment land here and this was a common experience for all us new people - not a lot of respect for the land really. I filled many bags to gradually add to my home bins over the first 18 months.

I knew what I was facing and acted appropriately. Whatever you decide to do you have hard work ahead. Its an old heap but couch & bindweed are easy to eradicate with weedkillers if you are happy to use them.

But do wear gloves on site going forward - the glass caught loads of people out at our site, and it still pops up at every dig.

Totally agree with gloves, I'm constantly unearthing glass or small,sharp and rusty pieces of metal....however, the gly******...it's a personal choice, but you really don't HAVE to use it.

Do you think Norman, it wasn't so much a case of them thinking what they were leaving for the next plot holder but more the thought that they'd be there forever? I've dug up so much rubbish, the most annoying being broken beer bottles. It's still irritating, yet I wonder if the old plotholder just saw it as their patch that would always be their patch and subsequently had no thought for future plotholders?

I have loads of them (alkaline soil). Nettles aren't bad, they just need to be intelligently managed

purple dead nettle

Of course. It will have weed seeds in it, just as the rest of your soil has, but keep on top of them, they'll be easy to pull out

Bag that up in plastic sacks and rot down for a year: very nutritious

I've never taken anything to the dump, ever. It's my personal mission to keep stuff out of landfill

You won't find composting worms in a mature heap: they need rotting vegetation to live on.

Earthworms need damp soil, as Di said

Thanks folks - my husband has just bought an allotment book that gives the advice of NOT taking on an allotment which is covered in grass, weeds and has a hugh number of plastic bags on the site - had I not read this after finding 50 plus plastic bags buried as we dig I would have thought this was far fetched! It could have been written about our site and yes we are digging up bits of glass so gloves are an absolute necessit for this as well as the nettles. Thanks for all the responses. My OH says we have no choice but to incorporate all the old compost into our plot because of the amount of space the piles take up - it is then going to be covered with plastic sheeting. We have built a wooden compost bin which is full of clods we have dug up and layers of stable litter (we have three piles on the site from known sources i.e. no harmful chemicals to kill off the veg) so hopefully next year if the council doesn't sell the site we will be able to address any issues caused by using the old compost. A second bin is going to house the least new pile of old compost left by the previous owner. As we dig over the plot we are discovering more friendly earth worms! And our neighbours are overjoyed because they have been dealing with flowering nettles for years apparently. The nettles are in the new compost bin but the roots have taken an age to dig out. I'm not completely organic but do weed for England on occasion and try to use chemicals as little as possible.
Thanks again - looking forward to doing some planting this weekend.