What do you do with your garden waste?

[TeaandLemonDrizzle]

Stupid question but what do you do with your gardening waste as I’m fed up of going to and from the local tip?!

Are there other options? I’m thinking grass and bushes/weeds.

In the brown bin that I pay an annual fee to be emptied.

We have a green bin that cost £41 per year we pay to the council and they collect it every 2 weeks during the summer

The most obvious solution is to compost as much as you can. All green soft cuttings can be composted down with kitchen scraps (nothing cooked or meat, dairy, fish) Even if you have a tiny garden you can fit a couple of small compost bins down a side alley. What are your circumstances?

Mixture of composting, brown bin and shredding.

Grass cuttings can be evenly distributed on borders as a weed suppressant and mulch for water retention.

Twigs can be chopped and added to compost then when compost is rotted in approx 4- 6month it can be redistributed back onto borders to enrich the soil.

Compost bin and green bin for the surplus.

In the brown bin free and collected every two weeks throughout the year you can get an extra one for I think it is £20

Brown bin, emptied every fortnight in summer. When I lived in Switzerland, garden waste had to be taken to the green waste dump which was only open for one Saturday morning each month.... Heaven help you if you were busy or away that weekend as the lawn mowing had to be timed to work with when it was open. In France, we could go to the green waste dump when we wanted... but it was locked and the key had to be collected from the local Mairie (village admin office) and returned straight after. As the office was only open on certain days in the week and we both worked full time this could be tricky! Moral, don't knock going to the local tip if you can choose when you go!

We have garden waste as part of our regular waste collection. We just buy reusable bags from the council and leave it out on ‘green’ recycling day.
I would like to start composting but don’t know where to start.

Brown bin here. I would love to compost but there is no room to do it properly. Titchy garden. I do chuck a fair amount behind the shed too!😏

We compost everything. Green waste, we shred paper, tear up cardboard, and have a chipper for the big stuff, which either is used as a mulch on beds or on paths. Autumn leaves go in bin bags, and rot down over a year into lovely leaf mould, brown gold. Can't get enough of the stuff.

Garden waste service here. Wheelie bin is emptied every two weeks. We have to pay an annual fee for the service.

Me too

Most of it goes in the garden waste wheelie bin emptied fortnightly, and which our council provides free of charge. Seems we are fairly lucky in that respect. Anything diseased goes in the ordinary rubbish bin, and big stumps and great long branches we take to the dump.

I'd like a compost bin, but don't have the right space for one.

Put it on my muck heap by the stables which rots down if not I'd have to pay for a brown garden waste bin.

Paid for green garden waste bin emptied every fortnight throughout the year. We did have a makeshift compost heap but it just ended up stinking as couldn't get the balance right & previously one had a rats nest.

Oh & when we decide to dismantle the old compost heap I found a desiccated rat in it 🤢

I've noticed there is a huge difference country wide in what councils will and will not take. I have a brown bin which is kitchen and garden waste, emptied every two weeks all year and not something we pay extra for. My mum on the other hand has to pay for a garden waste bin.

Composting is really good, my garden is tiny but I've got a small composter at the top, you fill it up and think your not going to get any more in it for ages but actually it breaks down pretty quickly.

Compost. I can’t see the point of removing nutritious stuff from the garden and replacing it by compost that I’ve had to pay for.

Any twigs and branches too thick for compost I heap ip at the back of a bed and they rot down eventually.

Take things with vicious thorns to tip.

I have a brown bin

@BestIsWest Construct some sort of container if possible same diameter/width as height. You could buy a plastic bin or you could make one out of old pallets. Either leave base open to soil, or start with a layer of soil. Then start filling it up with weeds (not the roots of impossible weeds like bindweed, couch, ground elder), thin prunings, grass cuttings, vegetable waste from kitchen, soft paper or cardboard. Don’t let any layer of the same stuff get too thick - if your grass cuttings layer is going to get more than 15cm thick, grab something else to make an intermediate layer.

After about a year, there’ll be good compost at the bottom, but you’ll have to move unrotted and semi rotted stuff from on top to-get at it.

If you have space, build a second bin and put the unrotted stuff in that and the semi rotted on top, and carry on from there while you’re using the first bin.

Ideal seems to be three, one filling, one maturing, one being used.

This!!

Green bin, emptied every two weeks, pay c£35 p.a. to council.

That’s a bargain we pay nearly double that.

I’ve taken out the brown bin fortnightly collection. £39 per year (didn’t realise it was so cheap)!
I will await my new bin!!