I spent a couple of sessions earlier this month clearing out an old compost heap that we inherited when we took on the plot. After a couple of years of neglect by us it was rife with bindweed and cleavers, plus the occasional deep-rooted dock, but I was sure there must be something worth salvaging in there, too.
Nothing for it but to fork it all loose and dig it all out. I went at it methodically, rough-sieving each spadeful through an old bread crate into the wheelbarrow:
The compost was quite dry and broke up easily, so this sort of rough sieving was fine for picking out the larger lengths of bindweed root. A quick fingertip-search through the contents of the wheelbarrow then turned up any smaller bits and pieces that had made the grade.
You can see what I was up against:
Whichever previous tenant built the heap had done their best, putting down polythene sheeting and a couple of old flags at the bottom. But they hadn’t quite reckoned on the amazing (and frankly terrifying) power of bindweed to go over, around, under or (if all else fails) through whatever barrier you try to put in its way.
Once I’d finished rough-sieving I dug over the area of the heap to get at as much more of the bindweed root as I could find, then levelled it off. I moved in the black plastic compost bins that I’ll be using as the final stage of my own compost rotation (more on that in another post) and set up what an old bath that will eventually become a worm farm (all being well).
After all that sieving and sorting, I was left also with a large pile of good soil improver. Most of it went on the courgette patch and the rest was used to earth up the potato rows.
I knew it was a job that was going to be worth the effort.
2 replies on “Working on the Compost”
I know just what you are up against. I have spent a few days digging bind weed out of the plot. The roots seem to go down to Australia. from the last area we dug out about a barrow load of the stuff. This is after having had the plot fot years and years.
Aye, it’s the very devil’s dangly bits and no mistake. And of course, it snaps like spun sugar and will re-grow from the tiniest fragment of stem / rhizome or root left in the soil, so if you miss even a tiny bit it will be back with a vengeance.
Even marestail / horsetail is preferable in some ways; at least that doesn’t choke the rest of your plants as it grows.