The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Izzy on May 19, 2019, 01:31:26 pm
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I am looking for a way to recycle the contents of 3 old down-filled cushions. The obvious way is to add them to my compost heaps but I suspect it would be hard to keep the feathers where I want them. My compost heaps are near my neighbour’s back door and patio so it could be messy and inconsiderate. In the next few weeks I will be planting out my tomato plants into the soil in my greenhouse. I usually dig a trench and fill it with composted FYM. This year I thought I might put the feathers in the trench first. How silly is this idea?
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Not at all silly, provided you are sure there are no chemical residues on them that could be harmful to you or the buglife in the soil
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Perhaps wash them in a bucket and rinse couple of times? It will stop them flying away as well
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Well they are 30-40 year old cushions so possibly from a time of nasty preservatives. I might treat one Tom plant to a feather bed as a tester. It’s tempting to wet them and add them to the compost now but I will leave that until the autumn after I have seen the impact on my test plant. Thank you TASers for your helpful advice.