3 Ways to Dispose of Weeds

You have removed weeds from your garden, keeping your own plants safe and healthy while at the same time making your garden tidy and attractive. Think you are done? Think again. Weeds only get to be weeds because they grow quickly and easily. Proper weed disposal is important to prevent the weeds you destroyed from returning to invade your garden time and time again. Here are some options you should consider when you need to get rid of weeds permanently.

1. Trash

Tossing your weeds in the trash—or better yet, the organic waste disposal bin—is the easiest way to get rid of them. However, if done incorrectly, simply throwing weeds away after removing them from the ground can still scatter their seeds, leaving you right back where you started — with a garden full of weeds.

In order to permanently dispose of weeds in the trash, you must first find a way to completely destroy all seeds that the weeds have produced. The easiest, most natural, and least resource intensive way to do this is as follows.

Rake up all of your weeds, making sure to not leave any behind. Put them in a black plastic bag immediately and seal it tightly. Now, leave them in direct sunlight. The garbage bag will collect heat and leave everything inside both too dried out and too cooked to grow. Once the bag has been in the sun for roughly a month, you can safely dispose of it.

2. Compost

Weeds are organic waste, right? So if you have a compost heap, dead ones should be a perfect addition? Unfortunately, it is far from that simple. Weeds can potentially live happily in your compost heap, or give off their still fertile seeds which can end up back in your garden.

However, the threat from composting weeds is usually exaggerated. Though composting weeds incorrectly can cause problems, with planning and proper technique composting weeds is perfectly viable.

First, as a test, you should make a separate compost bin just for weeds. Get a compost thermometer and use it to measure the heat of your weed compost pile — 100 degrees Fahrenheit should kill most weeds.

If your weed compost heap reaches temperatures that high, and your regular one does too, you should be fine. If you are successful, your next batch of compost can have weeds mixed in. Wait one to two months before reintroducing the composted weeds to your garden.

3. Bonfire

Burning weeds is probably the worst solution, but it is fast and thorough, assuming you have materials on hand.

Choose an area far from any buildings, structures, or flammable materials. Clear away any plants and have a bucket of water on hand. Keep your fire small and do not use any flammable materials to start it. If you must, using some shredded newspaper as kindling is fine.

Once you are finished, be thorough in making sure your fire is completely extinguished. Either stamp out any embers or pour water on them.