05/14/2026
Ever wake up and see a Facebook thread that you can’t help but jump into?… that was my morning. 😅
Every year I see posts asking about our FREE municipal composts, and every single year the comments bash it, making people, especially new gardeners, avoid it.
“Endless aggressive w**d seeds - you’ll never get rid of them”
“Filled with literal trash - not good for your garden”
“They make it with dog and cat poo. Don’t use it”
So I thought I would once again touch on this topic here with what I responded to the thread this morning.
I recommend the municipal compost constantly. We have used it ourselves for years and years with immense success.
And as you know, I’m a huge proponent of making gardening accessible to anyone regardless of their current situation in life, and amazing FREE resources are massively helpful!!
If you have any questions, please reach out. And while you’re collecting your compost, please remember to leave us some 😉
“I teach edible landscaping so dug deep into this topic after moving here 19 years ago and having the blessing of municipal compost for the first time.
1) W**d seeds are HIGHLY unlikely as it is composted as such high temperatures that it kills them. If you are experiencing w**ds, it’s likely due to mixing or tilling it into your gardens and bringing up buried seeds from your own soils.
2) Green bin waste is NOT included. That gets shipped to a facility in Guelph where it is composted under incredibly strict protocols and the finish product is sold to farmers.
3) Yep - I too have found random small pieces of plastic bags, etc. Someone even mentioned to me that they found a flip flop once lol. It’s at the dump and I just expect some plastic bags to be floating around from time to time getting mixed in. The random items like the flip flop I’m guessing is more from homeowners placing items into their yard waste bags that shouldn’t be. Be prepared to pull some small pieces out, but I don’t feel that should be a deterrent.
4) If concerned with herbicide contamination (a risk for ALL compost, even composted manures), test it first. Pop some fast growing beans seeds in a container of your chosen compost and watch how they grow. If they are curled and just grow really weird - avoid use.
Hope this helps! It’s such an amazing resource.”
