How to Dispose of Pulled Weeds

Many gardeners go through the once a week task of pulling weeds from that favorite flower bed or vegetable garden. Before the day is through the weed pile may be enough to fill one if not two large trash containers. Weeds grow fast and furious and unfortunately outpace the growth rate of those coveted veggies and flowers. It is a challenge to keep up with the once a week weeding exercise, but keeping up with weed disposal is a whole other task.

Yard Waste Pick up

Many municipalities or townships will let the homeowner pack up yard waste albeit "weeds" and grass clippings and dispose them with the rest of the weekly trash haul from inside the home. This would be the ideal way to dispose of weekly weed refuse except for one reason, it is going cost money. Most neighborhood waste haulers will assess a fee or require the homeowner to purchase a sticker to slap on the bag of yard waste or weeds. The good news is that the pulled weeds do not necessarily have to be sent to the curb if one considers alternative ways to dispose of pulled weeds.

Composting

Freshly pulled weeds can amount to a small hill of waste very quickly. Consider this mountain of pulled weeds compost fill. Before you add the weeds to the compost pile, they must be killed and dried out with extreme heat first. Place the freshly pulled weeds into a large black box container or heavy duty black plastic yard waste bag. Leave the container in the sun to allow the weeds to adequately heat up and effectively kill the weeds along with any potential seeds. The weeds should be given about a month inside the black containment before placing them into the regular compost bin.

Fire

So the weeds are piled up in the corner of the garden and you don't have a compost bin to speak of? Simply dry the weeds by placing them into a black bag or box and set in the sun's rays. Once the contents of the bag dry out, burn the dried weeds with the aid of a little newspaper or dry crisp sticks. The ashes from the burned up weeds can be worked into the soil.

Weeds are as inevitable as taxes and death. It is almost impossible to deny their existence no matter what preventative steps are taken in the spring planting season. Try to mitigate excess weed populations by growing crops and flowers with the use of landscaping fabric or heaving layers of mulch will do a respectable job of keeping potential weeds down away from plants.