OT gardening/mulch question

I use a mulching mower, so that the cutting is chopped up to a fine size and left on the lawn as mulch. You don't see it as windrows, that are common as side discharged clippings,and it actually feeds the lawn while giving it the clean look of having been swept up. A lot of the mowers allow you to cover the discharge opening and convert it to a mulching operation, so that would be my suggestion. You have to be careful to not let the grass get too long before you cut it or it will leave those windrows, only they will be clumps. Not sure of the efficacy of composting grass, but it probably would be fine. Somebody far more knowledgeable on the mulching process, will probably chime in here.

John

John

Leslie, that must be what DH does since we never have grass clippings to deal with unless we get too much rain and the place gets out of hand. However . . . I used to have a neat recipe where you put the clippings in black plastic bags, toss in a scoop of something and a cup of something else. Roll the bag occasionally and after it while it turns into mulch. Wish I could remember the recipe. Wonder where our Pat in Seattle now in Tampa is? She ought to know. Polly

I use a mulching mower, so that the cutting is chopped up to a fine size and left on the lawn as mulch. You don't see it as windrows, that are common as side discharged clippings,and it actually feeds the lawn while giving it the clean look of having been swept up. A lot of the mowers allow you to cover the discharge opening and convert it to a mulching operation, so that would be my suggestion. You have to be careful to not let the grass get too long before you cut it or it will leave those windrows, only they will be clumps. Not sure of the efficacy of composting grass, but it probably would be fine. Somebody far more knowledgeable on the mulching process, will probably chime in here.

John

John

To the best of my recollection, the only trouble with grass clippings in the compost pile is that they tend to clump. You want to turn the pile a bit more frequently if you use clippings. Useing them as mulch should be no trouble at all, lots of people do that. You just want to be sure you don't have weed seeds or self rooting creepers mixed in. It would be better if you could let your clippings dry out a bit too. If you don't you get that clumping thing again and that not only will cause heat build up in the soil, but will hold in more water near the surface than most other mulches. More water near the surface makes slugs and fungi happy.

Of course if your yard has been treated you want to keep grass clippings well away from food plants. No help for it, professional lawn sprays are often systemic, and you don't want to eat that.

NightMist

Thanks, NightMist. That's what I needed to know. No professional or other lawn sprays since I've been here, but that's only a month. VBG Would last years' spray- if indeed they sprayed, still be an issue, do you think?

Leslie & The Furbabies >

When I had a large veggie garden, I always used grass clippings as mulch! The only warning is not to use clippings that have been treated with a "weed and feed" product, as the week killer part can harm your veggies. The other rule of thumb is not to add more than an inch of fresh clippings to your garden at a time, as they heat up too much while drying/decomposing. My Dad was mulching his garden before it became popular, and we had the only compost bin in the neighbourhood when I was growing up! When I ran short of grass clippings, DH used to bring me shredded paper from work - they had one of those super fine shredders. This work well as mulch too, and by the end of the growing season, I just turned it under!

That would so depend on what was used. I think most of the stuff a homeowner would use would probably degrade after one season, with the pro stuff who knows? They use some truly heinous stuff at professional lawn care services.

I actually crossed off a nice place I was looking at because the owner bragged up her pro-lawn care regimen. Grass is nice in its place, but I have kids one of whom wants a dog. I do not need children and pets coming down sick because somebody puts more value on grass than is sensible. I want to live someplace, not rent it to look at!

NightMist and if I wanted someplace to look at it would be more >Thanks, NightMist. That's what I needed to know. No professional or other

We have a mulch mower now, but we used to have a mulch pile where we put most of the grass clippings. They would heat up and 2 neighbors mentioned the smell they would get in their back yard, so we stopped. When this happened, the pile was at least 3 feet high and longer than an ironing board. Barbara in SC.

Now see that is part of the clumping thing I was talking about. When you get clumps like that in a compost pile they hold water and don't get as much oxygen as the rest of the pile, and that leads to anerobic decomposition which stinks to high heaven. It was not the heat, a good compost pile should heat up, it was the lack of oxygen. You have to toss the pile now and again to let air in so the right microganisms do their thing, and the wrong ones find an unfriendly enviroment.

Mulch piles are banned in town here, but piles of "yard waste" are not. So as long as I don't chuck in potato peelings and coffee grounds I can have a covert mulch pile. I have looked at those fancy dancy compost tumblers they sell nowdays though, being totally enclosed they ought to be legal. I have it pretty well worked out how to go about putting one together, but since I am hoping to get the heck out of Dodge I haven't done it yet.

NightMist part-time insomniac

My father gave me his rules for composting; "you need green, brown, water and air". I used to layer grass clippings with dry leaves (we saved them in bags in the fall for the next year), and watered the whole until it was damp, like a wrung-out dishcloth, I covered it with plastic so it would heat up. The air part came when I turned it after it was good and hot, mixing the layers, and putting the drier stuff in the middle. Then I'd water again, cover and repeat until it was partly soil-like. If I added kitchen scraps (plant only!), I buried them in the pile so they wouldn't smell. That was at the old house, where I had two bins. Here, I have one of those plastic composters, and it's trickier. Last year I opened the slider at one point to find a textbook ant farm in there, only 2 weeks after I'd mixed the whole lot up. That's when I banned fruit from the mix. Lee