Okay, I am finally getting my garden weeded and most of it is grass that, unfortunately, has gone to seed. I usually dump in the woods but I have piles and piles I would like to compost but I'm afraid to because of all the weed seeds. My son suggested I toss it in with the chickens first. Anyone have any suggestions?

I wouldn't compost grass that has gone to seed unless you hot compost so that it heats up to kill the seeds.

Yeah, That's kinda what I thought. We have compost tumbler but I really don't think it gets hot enough. DH does something wrong?

I'll bet the chickens will love it.

Think the chickens can eat most of the grass seed? Then compost it?

The chickens at least will be happy if nothing else.

The chickens may eat the grass etc in its entirety.

It's no one's fault that the compost tumbler doesn't get hot enough. The volume just isn't there to build up and retain the heat. The general rule is that you need at least a cubic yard of organic matter (3ft wide x 3ft long x 3ft tall) continuously to keep enough heat to kill seed and bad diseases. That's pretty hard to do in any commercial set up. But if your goal is just to make good compost, high temperature is not necessary.

Rick, thanks. DH does make some really nice compost for me but I have noticed some seeds just don't get killed, like cucumber, melon.

I don't think composting alone will kill grass seeds - it certainly hasn't in my experience. I keep two compost piles - one that I will use in my veggie garden and another that I won't and just let break down in place, and the second one is where all the seedy weeds end up. That pile is constantly covered with grass (and morning glories), which has sprouted from the compost. Of course, that doesn't get as hot as a tumbler, but I still wouldn't trust it.

Looks like chickens are a different story. This PDF cites a study where chickens were more effective than any other livestock or composting method at killing weed seeds: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/... but they didn't use grass. Since they kill all the other weeds effectively, you're probably going to be fine if you feed the grass to your chickens and then compost their manure before you use it.

Wow, I didn't know that. Good article.

So I guess the chickens will get the grass. We add their manure to a huge pile of horse manure we let sit, turning a few times. I haven't gotten many weeds from the horse manure. Usually the wheat straw sprouts a fair amount of wheat but it's easy enough to pull or if I remember, I put paper under then if they sprout, they die pretty quickly.

bitbit said:I don't think composting alone will kill grass seeds - it certainly hasn't in my experience. I keep two compost piles - one that I will use in my veggie garden and another that I won't and just let break down in place, and the second one is where all the seedy weeds end up. That pile is constantly covered with grass (and morning glories), which has sprouted from the compost. Of course, that doesn't get as hot as a tumbler, but I still wouldn't trust it.

Looks like chickens are a different story. This PDF cites a study where chickens were more effective than any other livestock or composting method at killing weed seeds: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/crops/... but they didn't use grass. Since they kill all the other weeds effectively, you're probably going to be fine if you feed the grass to your chickens and then compost their manure before you use it.

I have two piles also. The last thing I want is to replant weeds in my garden!