Homemade potting compost

It seems that the troubles of commercial composts made from green waste which has been contaminated with the persistent aminopyralid and/or clopyralid weedkillers are here to stay, so I'm looking to make even more of my own stuff.

I watched Gardener's World with interest this week, and the vegan guy with a rather enviable vegetable garden explained some of his methods. The idea of using the composted wood chip from the paths as a mulch is one I have arrived at myself already and already use around my soft fruit, but the idea of sieving it to use in potting compost is an excellent tip. I shall certainly try that.

My other idea is this; I rarely can get enough leaves to make a huge amount of leafmold. I do, however, make a lot of woodshavings. I have a 70L bag of oak shavings to hand at the moment. Perhaps if I put them in a black bag. water them well and leave for a year or two, the result will be useable in place of leafmold ? I could probably use some water with a high nitrogen content to speed things up (no, not that , I meant water from the aquarium ...)

Chilli-head wrote:It seems that the troubles of commercial composts made from green waste which has been contaminated with the persistent aminopyralid and/or clopyralid weedkillers are here to stay, so I'm looking to make even more of my own stuff.

I didn't know anything about this - do you know where I can find out more? I've had such variable results since changing compost, and that could possibly account for it.

These herbicides are intended for broad leaf weed control in grassland, and have some unpleasant properties. Although they do decompose in soil, they attach to organic matter, and are released when that organic matter is incorporated into soil. Whilst attached to organic matter, they can survive composting, or passing through an animal.

Well, the Dow agrochemicals official line is here:

http://www.manurematters.co.uk/home.htm

It plays things down, naturally. There was a flurry of problems a couple of years ago. leading to the use of these herbicides being suspended for a year, but they were then re-introduced with clearer guidance - as if that will suffice !

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/herbicide_damage.php This is from Garden Organic