I didn't get my compost heated up enough this past winter to kill the weeds seeds. All the compost I put on my vegetables beds sprouted thousands (millions?) of weeds. I waited until I could tell the difference between the weeds and veggie sprouts before I weeded, but it is still a big problem for me this year.
I got some compost activator from Gardens Alive (http://www.gardensalive.com) and hope to build some new compost piles with it this year.
Does anyone have any tips for how to kill weed seeds in homemade compost? or how to make compost "hotter" so the composting process does it?
Weed seeds in my compost
To really make it cook you'll need to add enough "greens" (grass clippings, weeds-preferably w/out seedheads, spent plants, etc).
Instead of buying any "compost activator" you could more cheaply buy some horse feed/alfalfa pellets and use those to kick in the heating up process. (A 50# bag of horse feed costs around $8 here and really goes a long way.)
Keeping an eye on your bin, how it's heating up, watching it cool down, then turning everything again will help it to heat up a second (and sometimes 3rd time!) helping to burn up the weed seeds.
(As for me, I just don't put weeds w/seedheads in my bin cus I'm too lazy to constantly monitor the pile!)
Wishing you the best!
Shoe.
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