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Post by monsieur3seas on Oct 12, 2021 8:11:13 GMT 1
I have a lot of trees and shrubs which are 'pruned' every year, throughout the year. This leaves a lot of debris which I burn in a bonfire. Over the summer months the pile to burn grows and grows as I continue to keep the place tidy, but burning is not allowed until after mid October. I intend to light the match next week, wind direction permitting.
In order to be 'greener' I thought about investing in a shredder. The one I had in UK was electric and not very useful and certainly wouldn't cope with the volume here in France. A friend bought one costing over 2000 euros but he says it's useless and only good for very large branches after cutting off the smaller branches, leaves don't go through. I don't want to spend 2k - maybe a budget of 5 to 800 euros. It must be transportable by hand, not towed. It must take branches up to say 5 cm diameter as well as smaller. What does one do with the debis, does it decompose?
Has anyone got advice please?
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Post by ajm on Oct 12, 2021 8:33:42 GMT 1
We used to use the shreddings as a mulch in the UK, but be careful - we once shredded a load of hebe foe a friend and we mulched our flower beds. The next year we had loads and loads of little hebe plants springing up.
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Post by Polarengineer on Oct 12, 2021 10:38:05 GMT 1
The new world will have to adapt to new ways of tending the land. I have found that a part of the garden/park/woods/forest should be dedicated to composting the trash from the years growth. This area is ,in our case, called the biodump. Anything compostable is dumped there and this includes any small tree branches and twigs. Stuff about 3cm dia is logged for the fire and the rest is cut to lengths of about 50cm and stacked in a line to later rot down. It eventually turns into really good black soil. This means that part of your garden is not used for veges or othe plants, but composting is part of cycle of growth and should be included in garden layout. Burning small stuff is really not necessary and spending cash on a chipper means fuel being burnt too, all not in line with the new way forward. now the non bio stuff needs to be tackled as well, recycle everything you can.
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Post by Crystal on Oct 12, 2021 10:49:14 GMT 1
My advice would be to hire one, the hire machines are heavy duty and will cope easily with 5cm branches...you will get a much better machine than you can buy for your budget...plus you won't have maintenance or storage to worry about.
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Post by houpla on Oct 12, 2021 19:02:26 GMT 1
Mine's a Bosch electric, quite powerful but very limited as to what it's useful for because the feed funnel is narrow. The chippings make a very good weed-suppressing mulch, but if it's mostly wood, you need to sprinkle a nitrogenous fertiliser first to compensate for the nitrogen the wood uses in the rotting process. Mainly, it comes down to time. A bonfire takes minutes but it's a long-winded affair preparing and feeding branches into a shredder. Great if there's nothing else demanding attention!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2021 19:19:33 GMT 1
Domestics only in the UK but had one with a rotating cutter blades and the blades were forever getting blunt and needing to be replaced at expense.
Next one had a rotating drum and this, whilst similar price, has given much better service. It doesn't owe me anything now. Can't remember both manufacturers names atm.
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Post by annabellespapa on Oct 13, 2021 8:39:07 GMT 1
Why not invest in a trailer and take to the local decherterie and they will compost it for you.
I have a very old builders trailer and I fill 1 tonne sand sacks that I can store until I have 6 and then a trip to the tip !
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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 Oct 13, 2021 9:37:40 GMT 1
Unless you're a townie with no garden I don't know how people can live here without owning or having access to a trailer.
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Post by omegal on Oct 13, 2021 12:04:52 GMT 1
Unless you're a townie with no garden I don't know how people can live here without owning or having access to a trailer. Whenever people that stayed with us in one of the Gites, B&B etc who were planning to move to France asked what was important, near the top was; no mortgage if possible, a large van or a good trailer, for most it was something they hadn't included in their list.
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Post by houpla on Oct 13, 2021 18:17:41 GMT 1
Why not invest in a trailer and take to the local decherterie and they will compost it for you. I have a very old builders trailer and I fill 1 tonne sand sacks that I can store until I have 6 and then a trip to the tip ! You're lucky to have a forward-thinking council. None of the towns round here do municipal composting and you have to go to a designated dechetterie, even if it's only open for 4 hours a week.
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Post by annabellespapa on Oct 15, 2021 12:54:18 GMT 1
Why not invest in a trailer and take to the local decherterie and they will compost it for you. I have a very old builders trailer and I fill 1 tonne sand sacks that I can store until I have 6 and then a trip to the tip ! You're lucky to have a forward-thinking council. None of the towns round here do municipal composting and you have to go to a designated dechetterie, even if it's only open for 4 hours a week. Thanks for that Houpla, it appeared that in Brittany they all changed about 15 years ago, if you have lots of different rubbish, wood, steel, building rubble, separating out insulation and plaster board, you have to learn the order of the big bins and load your trailer accordingly so you don't cause a traffic jam. All the garden 'green' rubbish is composted and you can at certain times buy sacks of it as a so called soil conditioner but I wouldn't recommend it as it has weed seeds in it Before that time, the tip was only open on a Saturday morning and was in a wood, you literally pushed all your rubbish onto a pile a bulldozer then pushed it into the wood and was set alight, you did not have to guess where the tip was you just followed the smoke rising from the wood
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Post by houpla on Oct 15, 2021 21:02:09 GMT 1
Same here, they're very strict now about separating out the various categories. But whatever happens to all the green waste, it's certainly not composted. 20kms down the road in the Dordogne, they provide tonnes and tonnes of municipal compost for free. I really can't understand the thinking (or lack of it) behind my département's refusal to do it. They dish out (payable) compost bins instead...neither use nor ornament. OK, you wouldn't use the municipal stuff as potting compost, but it's invaluable as mulch. Manure's full of weed seeds too
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ibis
Banned Member
Posts: 1,376
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Post by ibis on Oct 16, 2021 19:09:41 GMT 1
I think there is a plant that turns garden waste into electricity somewhere in France
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Post by houpla on Oct 16, 2021 23:38:52 GMT 1
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JohnnyD
Member
Mayenne (53) When Covid allows..........Which isn't very often these days........
Posts: 1,999
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Post by JohnnyD on Oct 17, 2021 10:42:32 GMT 1
I think there is a plant that turns garden waste into electricity somewhere in France Can you grow this plant in the UK also? I want one
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