Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone composting grass clippings? Worth the effort?

Does anyone compost their lawn grass clippings? Is it worth the effort?


Thanks,


Jordan

I do but a bit differently. I put it around my garden plants to keep the weeds down. I hear you are not supposed to do that for some reason but it works for me. It also keeps the moisture in the dirt. By next spring it is dirt.

I leave mine on the lawn. If you don't mow often enough and you have them in piles on the lawn, raise the mower to it's highest setting and run over then again to spread them out. They're good for the grass.

I do the same as you with good results. The only reason I have heard not to is if the lawn the clippings came from a lawn that was recently treated with weed control. Depending what it was it can stunt or kill the tomato plants.

Mike

Pine needles, newspaper, chicken droppings and veggie pulp from juicing all on one pile.
Grows awesome worms as well.

Yes and yes.

I did it for a summer at my old house, kept them in black plastic bags, then in the fall, I laid out cardboard where I wanted my garden in spring, then piled the clippings on the cardboard. Covered it with plastic and in spring, had an insanely fertile garden. This year I turned over a new garden patch with clippings on it, and added some earthworms. We'll see how it does.

Same here. Mulching mower and no bag. I love the no bag part.

Mulching only really works if you mow frequently otherwise it creates thatch which kills the lawn. I bag mine and put it in the compost dumpster. City composts it and I go pick up a truck load in the spring for free.

My yard guy uses a mulching blade, and the clippings just to into the yard as fine mulch. Works fine for me.

I've mulched for years, and we get very heavy grass in the spring/early summer. Never killed anything yet. Thatch is not produced from clippings anyway--it is actually from poorly-grown grass that produces surface stolons which die off and smother themselves.

A mulched lawn is a happy lawn, and much greener, drought-resistant, and better fertilized than any other.

Your story here unless you cut. 3 times a week it doesn't work. No humidity and little heat.

Improper watering is a major cause of thatch and other lawn problems. Automatic sprinklers are lawn killers because they're usually set to water shallow and way to often. You need to put down a full inch of water then let it completely dry out. Depending on conditions, 5 to 7 days between waterings is about right. The inch of water will go down deep and the roots will follow.
Light shallow waterings will cause the roots to stay in the top inch or so of soil which is what causes the thatch buildup.

Absolutely. But grass clippings alone stink to high heaven. Save your leaves from the fall, and mix them in with the grass. You want a 50/50 brown/green mix. Keep it moist like a damp sponge. Turn it once a week. Add all your kitchen veggie waste. You'll be amazed at the beautiful compost that comes out.

Fugg a bunch of bagging. I don't have a big lawn, but it's big enough I ain't about to start bagging.

Mulching blades and a chute block turn dry grass into almost a powder. Wet lawn and high grass clump a good bit. Ain't no big thing. The dog does more damage than a bit of clumpy grass clippings.

Besides, my yard is lumpy and uneven. Hoping the mulching helps out a little.

This.

Trouble is that often the amount of lawn clippings generated by regular mowing will swamp a compost heap..Personally, I wouldn't want a heap that was more than a 3rd grass clippings...

That's why you save your leaves from the fall. Add them in to the clippings.

And no, I don't bag every single time either. I mostly will mulch, but then do a bag for the composter when it needs it. And I had a big one - two bins each about 3'x3'x3'. Will build a similar size at the new place.

Thats the way to go if you have lots of fall leaves..Another thing I would not add is hedge clipping from things like Leylandi or similar; those things seem to take for ever to break down..