Tuesday, June 20, 2017

What to do with Grass Clippings





Strimmers can be so messy

My lawnmower stopped working last year and I am only now missing it. It was one of those plastic Flymo types and did an OK job in the three years it was working.  Yes the cable frayed a couple of times and the blades were so flimsy they buckled on a tuft of couch grass. But it was quiet, light and could get into tight corners.

 My grass cutting this year is by a petrol strimmer and you wouldn’t believe the mess you can make with these things. I don’t think there’s a piece of wall or window where small muddy tufts of grass are clinging to. It’s very reminiscent of cutting a hedge with a power blade. It takes ten minutes to cut and three hours to clean up afterwards. With all of the sweeping and brushing down of pots you can see why I’m only reluctantly using the strimmer about once every three weeks. 

One thing is the same regardless of what machine I use to cut the grass and that’s a huge pile of clippings.  How do we cope with all of the cut grass throughout the year?  If you don’t bag them up and take them to the recycling centre then what are the options?

The simplest way to deal with them is to just leave them on the lawn, or the wall in my case. There is even a phrase known as "grass cycling" to make us feel less lazy when it comes to dealing with the problem. The grass clippings soon rot down and are a natural feed. This saves money buying fertilizer and saves time bagging up. 

I don’t think this is very practical for me with the strimmer grass though as it’s too long, maybe it’s be good for weekly cut grass and a mulching mower. I like the idea of not having a lawn at all; just a small meadow with wild flowers and growing cover plants but nothing seems as robust and up to the job of putting up with two frisky dogs playing.  

Compost Them
Grass clippings are approximately 85 percent water and 4 percent nitrogen, which means if composted correctly they will rapidly reduce to one tenth of their volume. A bag of grass clippings would reduce to handful or two of compost and I think they can be classed as both a wet and dry compost material depending on how much water they contain.  A compost heap usually includes other wet waste such as vegetable peelings and fruit. To balance this out, dry matter or carbon material could be added. This will help to keep the air circulating and stop it from smelling. Other dry matter includes paper, wood chips, leaves and broken sticks.
Add equal amounts of wet and dry matter to keep the fruit flies at bay and stop the smells. Another way to let the oxygen circulate in your pile is to aerate it. This means turning the grass clippings and other materials to loosen up the piles. 

Let them bake
Put grass clippings in the sun for up to a day before adding them to the compost pile. I tend to strim my grass then go and do other jobs for a few hours, the grass that spreads and flies all over the concrete path is soon dry in the sun. This reduces the volume considerably.

If you have recently applied pesticides or herbicides to your lawn, do not add the grass clippings to your compost piles until the rain has wash off these chemicals completely. 

Under the hedge
Grass clippings can be used for weed control at the base of your hedges. This helps to retain moisture and adds organic matter and nutrients to the soil. For best results spread about an inch or two of weed free clippings at the base of the hedge avoiding its main stems. Add more clippings when the previous batch has broken down.

Over the hedge
A pile of grass clippings is very attractive to hungry horses, ponies, donkeys, cows and sheep. I have a pile of broccoli plants to give to some local horses soon when the flowers die back to mix their diet up a bit

Buying New
I’m on the lookout for another lawnmower. I quite fancy one of those push types. It’ll keep the grass down long enough for me to come up with a “grassless lawn” made from wild flowers and my growing number of chamomile plants.

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