Buddinggardener
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Joined: Sat Jun 08, 2019 10:22 pm
Location: Greater Toronto Area

Major compost problem with Eco-lawn grass seed

My husband and I are finally at the stage of our lives where we want to focus on gardening and establishing a lawn. We had visions of starting a family and having children running bare feet on this lawn.
On May 17th, 2019, we ordered 6 yards of compost from a wellknown landscaping supply company north of the Greater Toronto Area. The driver was great and had all the soil land on the tarp on the driveway. My husband spent that weekend, about 50 hours, hand bombing about 80% of this compost on 7,000 square feet of our lawn. With the rainfall of the last couple of weeks and my husband diligently watering the lawn, we were hoping to see the Eco-lawn seeds start to germinate. On June 8th, 2019, we looked closer at the dirt all over our lawn and I have picked up tiny pieces of plastic bag remnants, tiny pieces of plastic, tiny pieces of glass. I can even read the tiny print on some of the plastic pieces. These pieces of garbage were never there before the compost. All of this garbage is found everywhere that we spread this compost on our lawn. We are beside ourselves realizing that the compost we trusted to be "premium 1/4" compost" (described as leaf, yard and food waste) and what the Eco-lawn seeding instructions called for is actually mostly dark mulch with tiny pieces of garbage all over our 7,000 square feet of lawn and the grass seeds have not taken.
Do you have any advice on how we can get all these minute, tiny pieces of plastic garbage off the lawn? We worked so hard to take care of our lawn including individually de-weeding the garden to make sure the Eco-lawn seed took. I am so worried that now instead of creating a sanctuary of a garden I have created a wasteland. We struggled with fertility for years and I just can't believe that a place where we want children to play is now covered in these very tiny pieces of garbage.
Please advise of anything that we can do to get this garbage off of 7,000 square feet of lawn? I hate the idea of just ordering more soil and burying the garbage that is now all spread out over our lawn. My husband is focussed on having a visually nice lawn but am concerned about all the garbage on the lawn (it would be like picking millions of pieces of lint off a king size blanket one by one). Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for reading this long post!

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

That is really a shame. All that work, to find such a defect in the compost. It’s too bad that this wasn’t apparent until I guess the rain washed the dirt off of the trash. Bagged soil and amendments contain trash too. A certain% is allowed by government and industry standards, even in Canada I guess. I suppose you might have a legal recourse if the content of the garbage was above the allowed %.

Your situation reminded me of this news article I read just a little while ago -
38 million pieces of plastic waste found on uninhabited South Pacific island | Environment | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... fic-island


Whatever else you decide to do, I would recommend concentrating on getting the glass shards picked up before the grass and the inevitable weed seeds start to grow in and obscure them all. Plastic bags as well as any paper will deteriorate over time. It’s the UV resistant material that will unfortunately remain, but, again, once the greenery start to take off, you won’t see them, and they will be entangled in the growth. So this is the time to do what you can.

I think you might try using a leaf blower to see if you could herd the lighter bits out and into a pile where they can be vacuumed up?

If the lawn/grass seeds haven’t germinated, I’m not sure if the "compost" is what is interfering. What is the soil temperature in your area? It might not be warm enough yet. Have dandelions and Forsythias bloomed/starting to bloom there? Have you seen seed-eating birds like sparrows and doves pecking on the lawn?

Do continue with the recommended care, although you may want to consult with the seed vendor.

That’s all I can think of for now. Will post some more if any ideas float up.



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