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  • #1

    Diseased plant waste

    What would you do with it? We're talking blighted/brown mould infested tomato plants and suspected mosiac virus on some of the 'spent' squash plants .

    We don't have the space to make a fire (even a small one) so burning isn't really an option and I most certainly don't want to put it into my composter .

    I've bagged it up with a view to putting it in the general waste bin because, for the same reasons as my own compsters, I don't want to put it into the brown composting waste bin, for collection, because that way it may well eventually end up on someone elses veg patch at a later date.

    OH thinks I'm crackers because he reckons:

    1) Everyone else will put their disease ridden plants in the brown bin (I'm strongly of the opinion that responsible gardenrs wont AND that 2 wrongs do not make a right); and
    2) The intense heat generated in a Local Authority composting centre, will (unlike our smaller domestic composters) kill any spores, bacteria etc and so it isn't a problem.

    Am I being over cautious? I really don't think so and I'm not going to change my mind but I did wonder what you guys would do?

    Regards
    Reet
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  • #2
    Mine have always gone into the 'black bin' too1
    "Nicos, Queen of Gooooogle" and... GYO's own Miss Marple

    Location....Normandy France

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    • #3
      The OH is right...(for once?)....the big council heaps get hot enough to kill any spores.

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      • #4
        I'm with your OH too, sorry! I put whatever I can't compost at home in there, even diseased matter.

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        • #5
          The composting companies have a great big commercial composting system which heats the plant material up so hot that it destroys all diseases. It then lays the hot material out in long heaps to cool down, before it gets re-used as soil conditioner.
          Whooops - now what are the dogs getting up to?

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          • #6
            I do compost mine BUT in a seperate bin and it is only used on the flower beds.
            Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

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            • #7
              I shove all my stuff in the Daleks: they get so hot they steam. My neighbours leave their blighty tomatoes in situ to rot, ditto powdery mildewed squashes, so I don't think anything I do will have any effect on the overall situation vis a vis diseases
              All gardeners know better than other gardeners." -- Chinese Proverb.

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              • #8
                I've also read that the council composters are hotter than Hades, so most of my stuff has gone in there ...
                Diagonally parked in a parallel universe!
                www.croila.net - "Human beans"

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                • #9
                  Mine goes in the council composting bin too. They specified that pretty much only japanese knotweed is a problem and shouldn't go in. There was no mention of keeping blight etc out.

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                  • #10
                    Is knotweed not killed by heat then?

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                    • #11
                      I've composted blighted plants for 8 years and this year I didn't have any blight, that should tell you something. So you can put those in the compost bin at home.
                      The probable virus plants, you should stick in the brown bin, for the reasons stated above.
                      "Orinoco was a fat lazy Womble"

                      Please ignore everything I say, I make it up as I go along, not only do I generally not believe what I write, I never remember it either.

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                      • #12
                        I have always thought that blight can't survive once the plant has been composted and that it needs live tissue to get from one year to another (i.e. a tuber). That is one of the reasons for not allowing stragglers to grow next year as the plants may be carrying the virus.

                        Ian

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                        • #13
                          In our current garden, I just add everything to our three compost heaps.. And leave two years..

                          No signs of problems yet in the first 28 years...

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by chrismarks View Post
                            Is knotweed not killed by heat then?
                            NO!!!! Knotweed, and I am assuming you mean the Japanese kind, needs very precise distruction. Try Googling it for information.
                            Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

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                            • #15
                              I've read that it's ok to compost blighted tomato and spud haulm, because the heat of the compost heap kills off the spores, but I prefer not to risk it, and put it in my green wheelie bin, because, as someone says above, commercial compost gets very hot indeed.
                              Tour of my back garden mini-orchard.

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