Worst Advice

digitS'

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I probably shouldn't admit this. I mean, why lower the general opinion of me further than it has already dropped with that "Giving Up" thread?

Okay, I didn't give up but I sure gave out some idiotic advice once . . .

It wasn't to just 1 or 2 people and the group that I was talking to hadn't solicited information. I just up and told them that you can put cotton string in your compost.

The fact that I'd only just done that and it absolutely never occurred to me that the dang stuff (100% cotton) wouldn't quickly rot away in short order -- was no excuse for me sticking my foot in my mouth!

Never put cotton string in your compost! It must take years and years for that string to decay! Why that is true I have no idea -- the dang string will break easily after a season in the summer sun. But, put it in a warm, moist compost pile with green leaves and all sorts of compostable "goodies" and the string's tensile strength must actually increase!

Take that "compost" out of the bin and bury it in a garden bed? Don't do that! That string just won't go away! If you pull a garden plant at the end of the season, the roots will be entangled in the string!

I have nightmares . . .

Steve :rolleyes:

edited: troubled me all day (much of it, spent behind the rototiller.) it is "worst," innit? lose consonants with hearing loss., everything becomes vowels . . .
 

Southern Gardener

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low opinion?! NEVER! Who knew it would take cotton string just as long as a plastic bottle to break down? I certainly would have never guessed! :D
 

hoodat

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When I lived in Oklahoma I would often clean barns and horse stables for the manure. Sometimes plastic baling twine would get mixed into the manure. Try running a tiller over that stuff. You'll spend the rest of the day getting it cut out and unraveled.
 

NwMtGardener

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Haha, ive also put some not so grest things in my compost pile... For our small wedding reception, i bought compostable forks, knives and spoons made out of some kind of vegetable matter, i cant remember what now... Well, they just WOULDNT go away!! Of course i'm not realy precise with my compost, so its not really hot, but still it took like 2 years!!
 

thistlebloom

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NwMtGardener said:
Haha, ive also put some not so grest things in my compost pile... For our small wedding reception, i bought compostable forks, knives and spoons made out of some kind of vegetable matter, i cant remember what now... Well, they just WOULDNT go away!! Of course i'm not realy precise with my compost, so its not really hot, but still it took like 2 years!!
Maybe it was cast iron plant? :p
 

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