How to dispose of diseased vegetation if you can't burn it?

[CelticRambler]

Many of the age-old advice on treating some of the most troublesome plant diseases says that the vegetation should be collected and burnt. A lot of "organic" gardening advice is the same.

But, apart from the fact that much of this stuff is still very green and doesn't burn, what if you live in an area where burning garden waste is forbidden? Or you're surrounded by tinder-dry forest and likely to set off an uncontrollable wildfire?

What other ways are there to dispose of contaminated plant material (onsite) that will not put the vegetable garden at risk in the following years?

[490808]

Dig a hole and bury it?

[kadman]

Compost it.

[peasant]

Dig a hole and bury it?

and add some quicklime for good measure?

[490808]

and add some quicklime for good measure?

I don't think he's asking how to get rid of a body

Anything buried is going to compost eventually. There will be a lot more anaerobic decomposition but it will rot down in a couple of years. Anything producing disease spores is going to have a problem spreading them from under a coupleof foot of soil.

Or do what I do with stuff I want to get rid off - like hogweed seeds and put them in a black bin bag for 12 months or longer if necessary.

[kadman]

Or use the irish solution...throw it into your neighbours garden

[490808]

Or use the irish solution...throw it into your neighbours garden

More like mine, put is a bin bag then throw it in a neighbors field.

[CelticRambler]

I don't think he's asking how to get rid of a body

Nah - bodies go straight in the compost bin. ... but

Compost it.

Composting doesn't kill blight spores (for example), and can in fact keep them viable for a lot longer than might otherwise be the case (coz they love hot'n'humid conditions)

Anything buried is going to compost eventually. There will be a lot more anaerobic decomposition but it will rot down in a couple of years. Anything producing disease spores is going to have a problem spreading them from under a coupleof foot of soil.

Hmm. In a mole-free country, a couple of foot of soil might present a relatively impenetrable barrier; in my garden, burying all that organic matter would attract a load of worms, who'd attract a load of moles, who'd throw it all back up on the surface within a few days.

But even so (and I have no shortage of holes into which I could bury stuff like this) if you're dealing with wave after wave of infection, there's going to be a time when stuff has to wait on the surface while you dig the next hole; or fill in the one in use.

I can see the logic of the "black bin bag" technique ... but that's an awful lot of black bin bags.

This is a partially hypothetical question, as although I have (huge quantities) of material to dispose of, I'm fortunate to live in a area where burning is still possible (provided you do it on a day when the wind blows the smoke away from where the gendarmes have parked their car ... )

[silverbirch]

I put the good stuff in the composter and the diseased leaves in the brown bin. I assume the temperatures reached in large public composters is sufficient to kill off the diseases?

[CelticRambler]

My question relates to gardens/people who don't have a "brown bin" and have to deal with this stuff themselves.

And also where the quantities are larger than your average bin could hold.

[CelticRambler]

Not yet sure exactly how it's going to fit into the new landscaping, but I'm hoping to build a (big, but safe) fire pit supposedly as a "social" amenity ... but with the potential to be used as an incinerator of sorts. Last year, I used a couple of half-barrels that are destined to become large planters and burnt successive waves of material in those. I was able to get around the "smokey green stuff won't burn" problem by supplementing each barrel with dried brambles - they do burn! - but I'm a bit short of dry brambles this year.

[765489]

I was able to get around the "smokey green stuff won't burn" problem by supplementing each barrel with dried brambles - they do burn! - but I'm a bit short of dry brambles this year.

What's your postal address CR, I'll send you over a truck load of them.

With spuds I would just leave the stalks on the surface over the winter... let the frost get at them ( if you have frost over there ) Don't bury them as it may keep the blight in the ground till next year... but not a problem if your not planting spuds, tomatoes or celery in the same spot the year after..

Brassica's I'd give them a chopping up with the rotovator anything left over, so as not to have things going to seed or rodents going at the leftover turnips that have gone staggy.

Have you got a spray routine for your main crop spuds ?

[CelticRambler]

No spray for the spuds. Haven't had any significant blight on them, ever - not even this year when the tomatoes are riddled with it. Funnily enough, the biggest problem we were warned about, and saw in our first year, is/was the Colorado beetle. And talking to one of the neighbours - about 300m away - last year, he has problems with them all the time. Here, having trained the children to march up and down the drills looking for the little critters that first year, and having them pick them off (to feed to the chickens ) ... nothing.

Up to now, I've always used potatoes as part of my "reclamation" process - same as I saw with my parents' generation in all the new estates in suburban Dublin. I don't expect a great harvest the first year, seeing as the ground is usually in a desperate state, and I deliberately put them in the same spot the second year (running the drills at 90° to the previous). But this year is probably the last time I'll have new ground to clear/improve in that way, and I'm not sure where I'm going to plant them next year.

[765489]

No spray for the spuds. Haven't had any significant blight on them, ever - not even this year when the tomatoes are riddled with it. Funnily enough, the biggest problem we were warned about, and saw in our first year, is/was the Colorado beetle. And talking to one of the neighbours - about 300m away - last year, he has problems with them all the time. Here, having trained the children to march up and down the drills looking for the little critters that first year, and having them pick them off (to feed to the chickens ) ... nothing.

Up to now, I've always used potatoes as part of my "reclamation" process - same as I saw with my parents' generation in all the new estates in suburban Dublin. I don't expect a great harvest the first year, seeing as the ground is usually in a desperate state, and I deliberately put them in the same spot the second year (running the drills at 90° to the previous). But this year is probably the last time I'll have new ground to clear/improve in that way, and I'm not sure where I'm going to plant them next year.

Spuds make a great job of the soil alright. Plant them next year where ya didn't plant them this year! Very strange the way your tomatoes went... but one year about 5 years ago that happened to me as well... but never had a significant outbreak since.. but I'm fairly tough on them with the removal of the bottom leaves when the trusses start forming and taking out of side shoots... also cause I have to grow them in a polytunnel every single bit of plant debris is removed and not allowed rot in the winter... do this for everything in the polytunnel as disease can overwinter.

There's a bit of mildew now starting to coat most things I have in the polytunnel now so apart from the tomatoes and beetroot I'm going to remove everything and wind down a bit.

[CelticRambler]

Spuds make a great job of the soil alright. Plant them next year where ya didn't plant them this year!

The challenge there is that the spuds represent about half the total surface area given to veg! They're my primary crop; and the secondary one is/should be tomatoes Onions and oniony things would be a close contender for secondary, but as they're a very compact crop, they're not much use in the grand scheme of rotations.

As it is, I'm trying to get two crops of spuds into the same ground over the course of the year, and I'm already thinking about how to improve the yield on a smaller number of square metres. But if this year has demonstrated anything, it's that I need to make maximum use of the two "climatic zones" of the garden so as not to be caught out by the wrong weather in the wrong season.

[765489]

You could do with a spare half acre somewhere that you give your own ground a rest from the spuds for a year CR.

[CelticRambler]

You could do with a spare half acre somewhere that you give your own ground a rest from the spuds for a year CR.

Well, yes-no-maybe. Although I'm not going to be signing up as a full member of the no-dig society any time soon (I need the work-out!) there's a certain logic to their fundamental assertion that natural landscapes don't generally get a year's rest. Even before I heard of the no-dig idea, for the last ten years, I've been trying to keep as much material as possible onsite, and limit what comes in from elsewhere. The net effect has been a steady increase in the quality and quantity of every crop - until this year.

This year, it's very much an "all or nothing" situation for the different fruit and veg - 20kg of strawberries in June, and still getting about half a kilo a week; salads are thriving (my "winter" salad, supposed to be for Feb-Mar is almost ready to pick now ); green beans are heaving; beetroots are massive (a bit too massive); carrots are great; celery is "best evaaahhhhh" ... but onions, garlic, shallots are desperate, tomatoes disastrous, pears and apples non-existant.

For a while there, I thought the tomato problem was due to logical-but-inappropriate planning. Last year, I had a good crop, but it was too damn hot and the tomatoes wouldn't turn red; so this year - when we were already in a heatwave and under drought conditions in March, I planted the first batch much closer together than usual, and in a cooler, damper part of the garden. Completely the wrong thing to do for the cool, damp summer that followed. But the later batches were more correctly spaced out, and in sunnier, drier areas and they've been hit too. There's even one self-sown plant miles away from the others, sheltered from any breeze that'd blow across the hot zone, and even that one has signs of blight on it since yesterday - and we haven't had any rain now for about two weeks.