Love your idea of growing a wildflower quilt. Let me know if it works!!!

Show us the quilt when it blossoms out!!!

I used both wool fabric and cotton on the compost heap. Just cut them up very small. Several of the County Councils here in the UK give advice on composting including cotton and wool. :lol:

Haha! Great idea! My husband uses strip scraps to tie up the tomatoes and pole beans...

http://www.sefton.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=2982 - Info on suitable material for composting. :mrgreen:

I have saved long skinny strips - selvedges etc - and tied the ends together and wound it all up like a ball, then used it to create colorful trellising for the pea vines to scramble up on. It works as well as jute twine for this purpose, and it amuses me to look at it.

We live in Florida. I compost and because my spouse has allergies and uses Kleenex by the boxfull, I put all of the used Kleenex and paper towels in the compost along with many, many newspapers, torn into strips. The disappear after about two weeks, in the summer -- a bit longer thru the winter. If dyes and newspaper ink were a problem, we would all be dead or in the hospital, long ago. It is amazing how all this material turns into the lovliest black soil in just a few weeks. If you haven't tried it - do so. We also compost every bit of kitchen waste, except meat and dairy products.

My opinion?! I wouldn't use them. There are better, quicker decomposing things out there to use - like black and white newspapers tore apart.

I wouldn't use fabrics of any size because I use a rototiller and the fabric would get wound up on the tiller causing my *Free Tiller Man* to quit!

I do use leftover strips to tie up my plants during the growing season.

I know I read something about scraps for birds needing to be a certain length or width - but I can't remember exactly what it was. Maybe if they're too long the birds can get hurt...I don't remember. Will our bird lovers know?

cotton is a natural product and non toxic. Yes you can but I do not believe you will find a pretty flower garden quilt as the out come...LOL have fun and make sure you cover them well. It will help with holding water and blending the soil. It will deteriorate in a few years. Good luck and have fun Planting :D

I save all my tiny pieces of fabric and batting and when I have enough, I stuff them into a pillow for a dog/cat bed to be donated to the Humane Society.

Comon sense would lead me to think that yes cotton would break down as compost but would take longer than some other things.

I am always leary of putting strips and threads out where something might swallow them and it would get caught on their insides. But, I used a thin piece of baby yarn to tie up a clematis vine and within two days "something", most likely bird or squirrel had cut it into pieces and taken off with some of them. I found that amusing.

What about the dyes in them? Is this safe if you are going to use them in vegetable garden?1

LOL!!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

what a lovely idea, if composting I'd wash first to get rid of chemicals.

Yes I have composted cotton and it works well. Basic rule is 'If it has lived, it can live again' so anything natural can be added to your compost system or soil.

I've heard HUMAN HAIR into the holes works well with getting rid of moles. Their front digging claws get tangled up in the hair. Take a nice box/container to your favorite hair dresser and ask them to place the swept up hair clippings into it for your moles. :twisted:

Here's a quick search result:
http://howtogetridofmolesinyouryard.com/

No, No, No. No!!!! The birds choke on the scraps. Use the scraps for ties or throw them out. Do not let them make nests with fabric scraps. Edie

Please don't give the scraps to birds. Edie

I have used strips for tying up my tomatoes. Works well, and yes, you need to remove them along with the dead vines as they will bung up the tiller tines...and then DH is not happy. :(

Patti

I am assuming that if you are talking scraps, you are not talking about pieces bigger than a few inches, and no long strips - - the strips/strings would definitely cause problems for a rototiller, however, if the one person who composts (piles, waters, turns) is correct, even those will break down.
Considering the process of gardening, the "chemicals" in fabrics are probably the least of your concerns.
Newspaper ink has been vegetable based for decades now, so a good friend to the soil. As a matter of fact, if you have ever read a book "Lasagna gardening", you will see that she absolutely uses the newspapers WITHOUT tearing them into teeny pieces even ... and, they still break down.
The "solution to pollution is dilution" .... you put your fabric in the ground, you water the soil, the heat of the earth starts it breaking down, the water you use to keep your garden growing continues the "dilution" process ...
it really is all common sense ... birds have no reason to eat fabric unless you soak it in something the birds want to eat ... I watch them pecking around in my cow piles all of the time, and they seem to be quite capable of finding one little gnat in a plop of poo <wave> or, maybe that one piece of grain that didn't get digested in the manure or horse pucks ... they won't eat your fabric!

I have put chopped up old t shirts (ones to bad off for recycling) into my compost bin, and they do turn into soil. I only use the all cotton ones.

You will need to completely wash out all the sizing from the fabric. My DGM used to mark her vegetable garden rows with strips of fabric (feed sacks) & eventually it would endup in the dirt. It seemed to disintagrate into the soil pretty good.

Hmmm, I don't think I would use the fabric in the compost pile because of the dyes.
One must be careful of the threads should they become entangled in teh birds' legs or around the beak in some freak occurance. That said, I have used threads for the birds.

As far as the newspaper, I planted our two raised beds last summer after building them, planted, covered with newspaper in several layers, topped that with straw pulled away from base of plants, and pulled maybe three weeds all season. This year we have built three more beds and I will use the same method.

I haven't heard about the gardening but I love to put out different colored thread scraps and small pieces of colored fabric in the spring and then find it all again in the birds' nests. I have also put hair from my hairbrush and it makes me happy that I could help them with their homes for the little ones to come.

I don't know about putting scraps of fabric in the soil, but I save all my small scraps and my thread clippings and put them out for the birds to build nests with.

I would think that over first. When you use news papers in your garden to keep weeds down, you are told only to use paper with black ink.

No I have never put the scrapes in the garden , but I do throw dryer lint out for the birds, I will start saving in a old coffee can to give to the birds, and GH, Thank you for posting this !!!! can't wait to see a small quilt in the trees!!!!