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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 14:21:49 GMT 1
Same here in 22. I wonder how the older folks get on. At some point loading a trailer and driving to the tip will not be possible for everyone. I struggle a bit pushing the trailer around to hook it up (sloping ground) but still managing to get it done. Same here, take your green waste in, then fill a couple of sacks and leave with the ready made compost. Grrr...I wrote to the Prés of our agglomeration suggesting that as there are numerous keen gardeners round here, it would be sensible to implement a scheme like that. Even if it was sold back to folks, to help cover the costs, there'd be plenty of takers. The green waste skips at the dechetteries are piled high every day, but whatever they do with it, it's not shredded and composted. Never even had the courtesy of a reply The next agglo bulletin did contain a load of guff about it being too expensive to 'process', though, even discounting the cost of personnel and transport. Transport?? They pile it up right next to the dechetteries! Their feeble suggestion was that we all shred and compost our own garden waste. Stupid people! Anyone with a big garden would tell them that you struggle to keep on top of it anyway, without spending hours on shredding waste, even if you could afford a decent shredder. A localish chap runs a business along these lines, selling soil improver. He had to close the gates in May last year because there was such high demand he'd sold out!
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 14:33:25 GMT 1
How many years since bonfires have been generally interdit? I say generally because it may not even be 100% of communes now and it will have spread gradually. I think they should be allowed, its crazy that I have to burn diesel to take burnable garden waste to the déchetterie and even one small sack of it will count as one of my 26 permitted visits per year. What do your neighbours do, pcpa? In our commune (which incidentally has frequent bonfires on the part of the municipal maintenance chap ) most folks just quietly carry on as they've always done. We respect the weather conditions and the crops in the fields around and any useable-size wood is cut and stacked for kindling, but the rest is burned or composted. It's tacitly tolerated. In rural France, there are two entirely different worlds....one for the politicos and one for real people
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 18, 2023 17:17:33 GMT 1
www.service-public.fr/This is the French website for all of France , bonfires have been banned in the whole of France for a while but as Houpla posts , in the countryside most people take the chance of being caught.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Jan 18, 2023 18:11:41 GMT 1
Weird that , Our French neighbour , who is not rich ,(just has a standard French retirement), pays a local guy to cut her hedge and take away the trimmngs.
Is it rich or just better planning for the future? The last local guy I spoke to wanted €500 to cut about thirty feet of hedge and expected me to take away the cuttings. Please expand on what you mean by "planning for the future". I think you may be living in some effing parallel universe if you think simple planning can guarantee having enough pension money to live like the idle rich upon retirement.
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Post by annabellespapa on Jan 18, 2023 18:17:56 GMT 1
I have recently returned from the local tip (22) and there is a pile of composted ex waste that you are free to take as much as you can carry, although it is not bagged but loose.
I don't need any but surely it must contain seeds of weeds etc, or do they treat it like pasteurisation ?
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Jan 18, 2023 18:28:51 GMT 1
I believe it gets shredded and then put through some kind of cooking process. Our tip used to do that but they started charging for it and then stopped due to lack of interest. I have to say I did have a good look intending to take some but it was very woody and nasty looking so gave it a miss.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 18:29:21 GMT 1
And as Houpla posted, seeing as the commune handy man has regular bonfires, there's not much chance of anyone 'being caught' I'd still like to know what happens to the mountains of green waste dumped at the dechetteries. Two possibilities..either it goes to landfill (tut!) or it's sold on to the local manufacturers of so-called 'terreau', to be chopped up, vaguely composted and then sold to the poor, unsuspecting public as being fit to grow plants in. It isn't! In fact it's almost instant death to most as well as attracting xylophage insects to the half-decomposed wood element. It just about qualifies as soil-improver, but in 40l bags, totally impracticable to buy big quantities.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 18:31:46 GMT 1
I have recently returned from the local tip (22) and there is a pile of composted ex waste that you are free to take as much as you can carry, although it is not bagged but loose. I don't need any but surely it must contain seeds of weeds etc, or do they treat it like pasteurisation ? In theory, if it's properly composted the heat kills off weed seeds. It wouldn't kill off roots of pernicious weeds like couch grass or bindweed, though.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Jan 18, 2023 18:37:02 GMT 1
If your theory is true, it would explain why we always have such poor results using it for planting up various things. We have a couple of large woven grow bag things in the polytunnel. Filled with shop bought compost and planted four tomato plants (bought as plants) and a full packet of carrott seeds. The toms were a poor crop considering the great summer we had and the carrotts are still lucky to average 2 to 3 inches long and stunted looking after over six months in the bags. We thought it was worth the expense since the ground here is very poor growing and we stopped planting outside because of the backbreaking effort of digging, etc. and poor result. We planted three fruit trees a few years ago and haven't had a bowl full of fruit off any of them so far.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 19:20:08 GMT 1
Twice now I've fallen for the 'bargain' stuff. Our local Intermarché do a couple of weekends a year selling 70l bags in quantity. Good price, rubbish compost. As for the pallet of 50l bags of 'geranium compost' from a local factory....everything it touched started to look sickly within a few days. The thing is, A, any compost, even the good ones, only contain enough nutrient to sustain a plant for max. 6 weeks. It's usually a lot less, especially if they're greedy plants like tomatoes. The same goes for fruit trees. Could you give them a bit of a boost from a handful or two of the widely-available engrais bleu (the balanced, cheap option) or organic feed like blood, fish and bone, in early spring? Or have you any neighbours with a stack of well-rotted horse or cow manure (it's better than nothing ) that you could raid for free? If you have Leclercs up there, I've found their engrais bleu to be the cheapest available. Check out cooperatives agricoles too, although they're dearer than the supermarkets round here. Another option....Amazon.de or whatever the spanish suffix is. Both cheaper than Amazon.fr and at least it would be delivered, saving your back
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 18, 2023 19:20:15 GMT 1
Weird that , Our French neighbour , who is not rich ,(just has a standard French retirement), pays a local guy to cut her hedge and take away the trimmngs.
Is it rich or just better planning for the future? The last local guy I spoke to wanted €500 to cut about thirty feet of hedge and expected me to take away the cuttings. Please expand on what you mean by "planning for the future". I think you may be living in some effing parallel universe if you think simple planning can guarantee having enough pension money to live like the idle rich upon retirement. I wouldn't know about idle rich Aardvark , I am living in my own sweet reality.
I was talking about my old French neighbour , who had worked all her life ( and her husband 's) paid the dues and now could afford to pay someone to cut her hedge, that's all .
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 18, 2023 19:23:24 GMT 1
If your theory is true, it would explain why we always have such poor results using it for planting up various things. We have a couple of large woven grow bag things in the polytunnel. Filled with shop bought compost and planted four tomato plants (bought as plants) and a full packet of carrott seeds. The toms were a poor crop considering the great summer we had and the carrotts are still lucky to average 2 to 3 inches long and stunted looking after over six months in the bags. We thought it was worth the expense since the ground here is very poor growing and we stopped planting outside because of the backbreaking effort of digging, etc. and poor result. We planted three fruit trees a few years ago and haven't had a bowl full of fruit off any of them so far. Tomatoes don't need compost , they need muck .We always have a great tomato crop and are still eating them fresh now. I have never used " grow bags " too expensive!
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 18, 2023 19:25:49 GMT 1
And as Houpla posted, seeing as the commune handy man has regular bonfires, there's not much chance of anyone 'being caught' I'd still like to know what happens to the mountains of green waste dumped at the dechetteries. Two possibilities..either it goes to landfill (tut!) or it's sold on to the local manufacturers of so-called 'terreau', to be chopped up, vaguely composted and then sold to the poor, unsuspecting public as being fit to grow plants in. It isn't! In fact it's almost instant death to most as well as attracting xylophage insects to the half-decomposed wood element. It just about qualifies as soil-improver, but in 40l bags, totally impracticable to buy big quantities. Here , the compost is sold to the local farmers by the trailer load . They use it for soil improver. I wouldn't use it because it is not organic , you never know what you import.
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Post by houpla on Jan 18, 2023 19:25:54 GMT 1
Bear in mind the differences in pensions, cernunnos. The average French pensioner is rich compared to his or her Brit counterpart
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Post by cernunnos on Jan 18, 2023 19:28:10 GMT 1
Bear in mind the differences in pensions, cernunnos. The average French pensioner is rich compared to his or her Brit counterpart €800 per month for farmers in France . I would expect that the French pay more for their pensions too!
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