Sounds good to me. I usually try to circumvent transporting it to a compost pile by dropping weeds right where I pulled them, to act as mulch. Unless they have gone to seed, and then they go somewhere they won't be a menace.

Does making a compost heap have any benefits over leaving weeds in place?

I don't think they kill the weeds (unless they generate lots of heat or perhaps are left a good few years?)

Does covering them prevent nutrients from leaching or evaporating?

@lucy - I think the main advantage is just how it looks. And obviously if you had huge amounts, it may be a slightly different scale. Another advantage would be if you wanted to use the compost somewhere else to improve soil, ie if the area where weeds are growing is rich soil and you have a bare patch elsewhere. But generally I find it easier to drop in place and chop up later with the lawnmower.

Yes I do have large amounts and most of what I collect comes from between the beds where I scrape it off with a sharp spade used like a big push hoe.

I get about a wheelbarrow or two a day and it builds up to quite an amount over the season that is quite easy to transport back to make instant new beds after a period.

The weeds are a problem .I pull them manually or flame them at the very beginning when they are very small (but new weeds keep coming although thankfully the light growing medium makes them very easy to pull out in clumps)

Honestly whatever works for you. You could try mulching the areas where weeds grow so prolifically though, for example with a two or three inch layer of wood chips (or even compost) just to prevent them getting enough light and etc. What does get through may also be eoaser to pull by hand rather than scraping. But again whatever works for you.

I don't really understand, I guess. You hoe your garden, remove the weeds to an area where you cover them with something, then return what must be slime a year later? Isn't that just anaerobic composting? What does your end product resemble? If you cover the area between the rows with mulch, won't you solve your weed problem. I'm not getting it, I think.

@annpat I collect a lot of soil with the weeds. I scrape the surface to a depth of an inch or less (as shallow as I can actually )

I'd say it is half weeds ,half soil and the result is not at all slimy.

It is similar to the way some people dig up and stack turf upside down to make top soil.

Taking another tack, shallow weeds you can prevent from taking hold in the first place through heavy mulching. Weeds are caused by having bare exposed soil in the garden. I cover every inch of soil with mulch twice a year (straw in the summer and chopped leaves before winter), which makes weeds weak and rare. Of course, it doesn't help with plants that send runners under the soil - but chopping off the tops with hoe doesn't get rid of those either.

Yes I see that. Till now I was frightened to mulch because I could not control the slugs(which mulching attracts).

I have got on top of them over the past few years by using ferrous phosphate .

So I might reconsider my practice and take up mulching to a greater degree.

The comments are no longer in chronological order for me, but I understand better now. It almost sounds more laborious than my mulch gathering efforts, You can see if you like mulching in small areas first----like maybe on one row. You might consider a newspaper layer, which is a very effective weed suffocating mulch when covered with something pretty like compost, chipped leaves, etc. I'm sure the nitrogen gasses off when you cover your hoeings, but it would in a compost bin also.

I've noticed comments out of chronological order when clicking on an email link, but proper order if accessing houzz the regular way. One of many oddities.

It feels like a very antiquated forum system here. There is no facility to quote others' posts as far as I can see. This used to be a different forum (forget what it was called now) and was incorporated into houzz a few years ago.

It may be difficult to upgrade an old database. I have heard they start to show their age after some time and when faults appear ,they may be hard to work around.

I am a big fan of mulching, and i often pull the weeds or deadhead flowers or cut down things that are finished, and just turn around and use them as mulch somewhere else, usually within arm's reach. When I've got good thick mulch, very few weeds come through. Some of the flowers that I deadhead do eventually sprout and become weeds themselves, but they tend to be very delicate and easy to pull out, especially if they are struggling to come up through mulch.