bonfires

[purplevegman]

hi we have a new town council managing our alloments.they have banned bonfires.do they have a responsibility to provide us with an alternative? i have a border of a chestnut tree,a bay willow and wild blackberry bushes which i have to trim.
many thanks for your advice.

[Snadger]

Luckily our burning season starts 1st November! We are still only allowed to burn clean dry wood though.
I have a woodburning stove in my greenhouse which means I can burn even in the times we aren't allowed open fires due to a loophole in the law.

[Two_Sheds]

I chop my wood into 12" lengths, bag it and give it away as firewood on Freegle.

Smaller twigs get shredded and used as mulch around shrubs

[Glutton4...]

You could all club together and buy a shredder, then, as TS says, you could make use of the cuttings.

[womble]

My blackberry thinnings get thrown back on top of the blackberry bushes.
Doesn't chestnut make good stakes and poles?

I also have a woody compost pile, it doesn't take up that much space, you must have a spare corner somewhere. All woody waste goes on it, I pile the grass clippings up on it in the summer and apply natural bodily waste fluid to it, liberally, this helps break it down faster. Every couple of years I move the heap and harvest a lovely forest like compost from underneath.

[Alison]

We're allowed fires but in the 2 years I've had my plot I've never had one as I really hate them - nasty smelly things and it really puts me off when the guy two plots down has one (he's pretty much the only person who does thankfully). I compost as much as a can, use thicker stems for supports / wildlife shelters and council green bin the rest, works fine for me and is nice and easy

[Speed Gardener]

The council will probably say they already provide an alternative to allowing bonfires, that's the green waste area at the local tip. So much for being environmentally friendly, you have to burn fuel to get there, that's if you have the transport..Besides, the amount of green waste an allotment generates is usually a bit big for regular transporting to the tip.
Our allotment agreement had a bonfire ban as from last year, I just ignore it and burn when I've got a big pile of stuff and the wind is blowing away from the houses and in the direction of the rugby pitches..If you get it hot enough, the smoke goes a long way up before drifting in anyone's direction! In any case, the bloke from the council said it didn't matter as long as nobody complained.

[Alison]

The council will probably say they already provide an alternative to allowing bonfires, that's the green waste area at the local tip. So much for being environmentally friendly, you have to burn fuel to get there, that's if you have the transport..Besides, the amount of green waste an allotment generates is usually a bit big for regular transporting to the tip.

As I said above, most of the green waste can be composted on the plot so doesn't need to be transported anywhere. What's left goes in the council green bins (most of this is collected but if I have excess then I often cycle it there in my bike trailer) and is recycled and reused which I consider to be more environmenally friendly that burning it all.

Our allotment agreement had a bonfire ban as from last year, I just ignore it and burn when I've got a big pile of stuff and the wind is blowing away from the houses and in the direction of the rugby pitches..If you get it hot enough, the smoke goes a long way up before drifting in anyone's direction! In any case, the bloke from the council said it didn't matter as long as nobody complained.

I'd complain if we had a ban and somebody blantantly ignored it. Well actually I'd speak to the individual first and if I got nowhere then I'd follow up with a complain. I find that Sod's Law dictates that wind direction always changes within 10 mins of starting a fire

[purplevegman]

bonfire

thanks.the council are reconsidering.maybe i will put it under the blackberrys.

[gojiberry]

I compost most of my allotment refuse but have a problem with brassica stalks especially as I suffer with clubroot. Just end up with to many to bag up and put out for refuse collection, so I usually save them up and burn once a year.

Ian