This is a potentially controversial subject but is free mulch/compost from the tip safe to use in the home garden? This is the question I pose in this video…
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Please watch: “5 Fruit Tree & Veggie Patch Questions”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50HgG0yBX80
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I think for the purpose that you are using it for is just fine! I Honestly wouldn't trust landfill compost for the gardens for the simple reason that you don't really know what goes into it! That's why everyone should make their own ; )
I wish we had one hear. They did this where I use to live. But you had to pay like $8 a yard. I think it is safe it went in areas with flowers and hostas.
Good question! I've wondered myself. Where I live the same is required. Everyone separates the trash and Bio stuff goes to be composted. I can get one cubic meter of 80% composted material for free and then it costs a tiny bit per Cubic meter after that. I use that primarily for mulch. I can get 100% compost for about 10 Euro per cubic which I till into the soil. I've found everything from rusted knives to plastic sheeting in this stuff. People are not as careful in separating anymore. This is actually a touchy subject here with my family and friends. I do not pay the city to take away my "bio" then pay them again to get it back as compost. I compost my own and have seriously considered hitching up my trailer and driving through the neighborhood on "bio" day and getting theirs. Everyone around me thinks the city does something "special" to it and are shocked to find out I do this. One night a special program came on tv showing how the city composts stuff. EXACTLY as you described and exactly as I do, except I have to turn mine by hand. My family STILL insisted there was something special and I lost my temper and yelled "Do you not understand that they have convinced you that you do not have enough intelligence to to watch a pile of shit ROT!"
Mark lets just say I wish it were available here I would love to have access to a free resource like that.
Excellent video thanks.
Coincidently I have been looking into this topic lately.
Some councils (like mine in Sydney) have separate green waste bins for each household.
My council charges $37 per tonne for the mulch at the recycling centre.
At many other councils it is free, like yours.
I have actually started getting my neighbours binloads and composting it myself.
I have seen some crazy stuff in the green waste bins, like treated pine planks and plastic of course.
Having said that, I think the mulch from the dump would be reasonably safe, especially the way you use it.
I would even use it on vegies, after composting it at least 6 months longer.
The contaminant portion would be tiny, and much of it would degrade with composting, and I doubt whether plants would absorb much in growing anyway IMO.
Totally safe because the sanitation department in my area composts the yard waste at a very high temp. I have been using free mulch for years and have never brought home a pest or a weed from it.
They tried that here (Eastern USA, coastal) because of all of the hurricane waste. They ended up not being able to give it all away and had mountains of mulched hauled onto low lying municipal owned lands as fill and waste. The every day stuff that is processed into "mulch" is simply ground material that is screened. The finer screenings are mixed with mostly sand and allowed to heat up in windrows, but never actually compost. Folks were complaining that they could not grow anything in the stuff and that it was not "composted", but sold as "compost". The county decided to add a liquid nitrogen without telling anyone to boost its effectiveness and popularity. Of course they started charging too. Some folks who did not know any better spread word that it is great for growing, but others have avoided it. My experience is simply putting it around shrubs and after a few rains wash the brown color off the white sand, it is basically wood chips and sand. A load of crap with chemicals sprayed on it. My last load in my 6ft pickup bed cost my around $40 USD. I'd rather go to the horse barn or gather bagged leaves. The other thing is the things that people have found mixed in it; medical needles, pieces of diapers, silverware, lots of broken glass, etc nothing I want to put my hands it or bare feet.
If you can find someone who collects the sweepings from tree leaves in the fall and just make a huge pile of it or bag it up to decompose for a year it makes great litter for the chickens as well as compost. I understand that the acidity in broken down leaf compose keeps the chickens free of lice etc., but have not used it for that myself.
Hi Mark, I heard only good stuff about those ramial wood chips layers under fruits trees especially promoted in book by Michael Phillips – The Holistic Orchard.
Our council has changed its rules a few times. They started charging for residential quantities at one stage but ended up with too much so now it is free for 3 cubic metres per person per day and $9/cubic metre for commercial quantities. The main problem most experience is the spread of weed seeds however I believe they have changed to a more hot composting method. It makes sense to use what we can. Can't answer the 'how safe ' question but agree it's a step towards Living a more sustainable life which makes it a good thing.
I think it's great! I get a good bit of my much form free drop sites in my area. I still buy a bit of decoration much but anything im not trying to pretty up i get from the free sites.
can you make more quail vids pleas
Wow, I think that such compost mulch being available for you is a great thing. Out here we have to buy such stuff…I wish more places started sharing compost/mulch so that people like us can can use it. Great video!
Hey Mark…..We live on acreage so rely on free mulch from our local tip (Bunya). Apart from the odd bit of plastic or foreign object never had an issue to date. Same as you i do not use in vege gardens.
NO not safe! These days we have residual herbicides such as Grazon and 2,4-d on hay and manure and from weed n feed products on grass clippings. These are selective herbicides which are very persistent in the soil and get passed into hay, grasses, and manure. A contaminated load can ruin your garden soil or kill your fruit trees!
I would if our council offered it & had better controls in what goes in to the piles. Here anything wood based goes in including treated timber, weeds like nut grass & MDF style products.
Cheers Mark.
I never heard of that. I wonder if our dump does that. I'm from the US
We get free composts and mulch here in San Diego at the landfill too. I use the composts for vegi's since landfill composts are cooked at high temperature. As for mulch, i used them on trees and useless desert flower plants but never put mulch close to building structures. Fire hazard and unwelcome bugs.
I mix it up wit the regular dirt in my back yard and grow pineapples with it, and potatoes. I let the mulch sit out in the sun for a couple of years before using.
We used to get all the mulch free we wanted from our dump here as well. Most of it comes from tree contractors dropping off branches from trimmed trees. Our county doesn't require recycling so few people do it unless it's something they can turn in for money like metals. I've never used the free mulch because I'm wary of getting termites in it. Many of the dead trees around here are filled with them, and don't want to bring them home in free mulch and put it around my house. But in recent years there isn't much left for the public. The dump got the bright idea of selling their mulch to local landscaping contractors, so most of it is gone before the public can get any.
Thank you for covering this topic Mark. I have been enjoying a ton of your videos and your madness for mulch led me to my local dump and they had mountains of free mulch!! I'm getting my 10 Ponkan trees back into shape 😀
I wouldn't choose it personally. Just because there is pretty much guaranteed to be stuff with chemicals or heavy metal build up that stays in the soil. There are bugs and microorganisms that can help bind that nasty stuff up but also alot of plants that that stuff accumulates in. I just wouldn't choose it when there are plenty of other great sources of organic matter around.
I just worry that invasive plants might be in the compost and now it's spread into your yard. Buckthorn, honeysuckle, and brambles. Could be a nightmare.
Windrow compost is perefectly safe for the veggie patch. I've had a fair amount to do with commercial composting plants over the years…
My city doesn't do it for free(once per year, one week for city residents only) but they use the city sewage in some and tell you don't use on food crops. It's for flower beds, but people use it in everything with no major problems.
If it's free, it's for me.
Im near Los Angeles and they give it away here…sometimes you can smell a lot of horse manure in it from all the horse owners…but you always get mushrooms growing out if it
So what do you look for if you want to get mulch to put around your veges?
Hello from Canada! Thanks for all the vids Mark. Learning so much. Especially about Hugelkultur! Do you still use this mulch even though you've now established a giant Humus pile in your yard as well as a great woodchip source for yourself? Would you still use this around your fruit trees? Question number 2… Will freshly chipped trees versus the composted chips contaminate my leafy vegetables/root crops? My city has 2 piles. Freshly chipped and composted…. then they combine both piles before closing.
It would seem to me that you would also be getting all sorts of unknown seeds along with the compost. If you put it directly into your garden, those seeds are going to germinate and grow. Instead, I would put it into my own compost pile for a year or two and let the worms and weather work on it before using it in my garden.
Terry Thomas
Brookhaven Gardens
Atlanta, Georgia USA