Grass clippings are a good mulch option with a few conditions:. Composting involves mixing grass clippings and other plant materials with a small amount of soil containing microorganisms that decompose organic matter. Grass clippings are excellent additions to a compost pile because of their high nitrogen content. Grass clippings should not be the only compost material. As with mulches, a thick layer of grass clippings in a compost pile will lead to bad odors from anaerobic decomposition.
Mix them with dry materials such as leaves or straw. See Composting and mulching — A guide to managing organic yard wastes. All rights reserved. The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer. The key to quick composting is to reach a high internal temperature , and this type of stack accomplishes that goal. To speed up the composting of grass clippings, consider mixing brown ingredients into your pile.
The carbon in brown ingredients combines with the nitrogen inside fresh grass clippings, to generate more heat and faster turn-around time for complete compost. The outer layer of grass on your pile will dry out in a matter of days.
My yard has an abundance of small dried leaves that get sucked into the bag as I mow. I find this is the perfect no-brainer blend that I dump into my compost pile for speedy results. Related Best Compost Tumblers. The size and moisture content within a bin enclosure alter the ability for composting grass clippings fast. Keeping compost ingredients moist is critical for heat generation, and helping the microbes inside the pile stay happy and healthy.
Lightly douse your pile with water after you add more grass clippings. Spray down the mound if you go several days without rain. Do not drench the pile, as everyone knows how stinky wet grass can be. The anaerobic conditions of wet, dense clippings trap the nitrogen and convert it into ammonia, which smells!
Trim the yard, set aside those clippings to dry out. Then the next time you trim the yard, you can add equal amounts of the fresh clippings and the dried ones from last time. Most herbicides, though, are legally required to be able to break down in a few short days in order to be marked for use on lawns in residential areas.
Caution should only be taken when using grass clippings from farms or large venues like golf courses. Grass clippings can be composted similar to any other nitrogen-rich material that can break down in a compost pile. Special care should be taken with them, though. You should be sure not to stuff them down when adding them. A couple tips to keep in mind: If you find your pile is full of grass clippings, give it a turn every few days with a proper tool.
This will help speed the composting process along and introduce air into the pile. Compost your grass clippings in thin layers and in a two-to-one ratio with a brown material to keep the balance. Overheated and deprived of nutrients and oxygen, microbes eventually decay. Depending on the size of your compost pile and brown to green mixture, it is recommended to turn your compost pile every days. An alternative to composting is using a mulch mower to return the grass clippings back into your lawn.
Since grass clippings are mostly water and have a high decomposition rate, most homeowners decide to leave the clippings on the lawn as a natural fertilizer. While grass cycling is recommended, there are instances where composting yard waste is more convenient than mulching grass clippings back into your lawn.
Some people prefer to bag or compost their yard waste for aesthetic purposes or because they do not want to track the clippings into their home. But apart from aesthetics, there are additional disadvantages to recycling grass clippings into lawns. Yards that are overgrown or wet often leads to clumping of grass.
These clumps of grass clippings, if left on the lawn, can discolor and smother your lawn. There are a couple of remedies for this — either collect the clumps or go over the lawn again to break the clumps into smaller pieces. Both can be time-consuming. Other things to avoid with mulching lawn mowers are large quantities of leaves and weeds.
Many lawn mowers especially older ones cannot handle an abundance of leaves. In addition to excess leaves, weeds , like dandelions, knotgrass, and crabgrass should not be mulched. Mulching returns the clippings back into your lawn and in so doing you risk spreading weed seeds throughout your lawn. But for composters, dried leaves are excellent for aeration and supplying microbes with protein.
And weeds are ideal green material. They break down easily in compost and microbes will consume those pesky weed seeds for you.
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