You’ve just mowed the lawn and you’re pretty chuffed with yourself. A hard day’s work! But your mower’s collection bag is full and you wonder what to do with grass clippings? Luckily, you have options and you may even come to realise that those little snippets of grass that churn out the back of the mower are like gold dust!
What To Do With Grass Clippings – The Options
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Lawn clippings still have lots of nutrients that you can recycle. But how? You have three green options, or you can just be wasteful. Let’s lay choices on the table before we get into any details:
- Leave them on your lawn, returning their nutrients to the soil
- Compost them to make a rich soil enhancer for your lawn or other plants
- Burn them in an incinerator bin and use the ash as a fertiliser
- Throw them in the bin – it’s a big waste of nutrients and space but it’s an option
Should You Leave Grass Clippings On The Lawn?
You absolutely can, and it’s actually a pretty great idea. Leave them on your lawn and the rich nitrogen content will return to the soil and make the lawn healthier than ever, just as nature intended. You’re basically added a natural fertiliser to the lawn.
For best results, use a mulching mower and let the clippings fan out the back. Then when you are done simply leave the clippings to decompose on the lawn. If there are any clumped together, you can separate them for faster decomposition.
The grass clippings should disappear within a few weeks. Bear in mind this only really works well if you are cutting a little bit of the grass each time, at a relatively dry time (mowing in the wet is generally a bad idea). A quality mulching mower will make the results much more effective though, and be a bit more forgiving in terms of the quantity of grass you can leave on the lawn.
Can I Use Grass Clippings As Fertiliser?
Grass clippings are a rich source of nitrogen and can be scattered around vegetables, used to fortify the soil with nutrients, mulched around other plants, put in the trenches with the spuds, or even spread in the bottom of the chicken pen.
This process of reusing your grass as a fertiliser is known as grasscycling. If you’d like to learn more, check out our detailed guide on the benefits of leaving grass cutting on the lawn.
But this option is not for everyone. It may ruin the aesthetic appeal of your freshly cut lawn. If you don’t want to pursue grasscycling, then another fantastic option is composting.
Grass Clippings As Compost – Does It Work?
A few layers of grass clippings are a fantastic addition to your compost heap. To compost your clippings on the lawn, mow dry grass with a sharp blade and aim to remove no more than a third of the height of the grass. This can usually be accomplished twice weekly in the summer months and once weekly at other times.
However, if you put too much you can end up with a slimy smelly mess. To avoid this, make sure you mix them up regularly with other composted items like paper, cardboard, leaves, and vegetable peelings and other organic waste.
This will helps the compost to heat up and rot down faster. You should also consider adding mushrooms to your compost, or worms. Both are brilliant at breaking down organic materials and creating a nutrient rich compost.
The grass clippings should have turned completely into compost within a few months. Be aware that you may need to stir or turn the heap for optimal composting. Some composting bins, like that one below, are specifically designed for this and will make it much easier.
- Speeds up composting - Saves effort in turning backyard waste into compost.
- Effortless turning - Self-Turning, Tumbling feature.
- Easy to assemble.
WARNING: Avoid putting clippings from herbicide-treated lawns in compost heaps. The strong chemicals can persist and could harm plants that the compost is later used for. Stick to organic lawn care!
How To Dispose of Grass Clippings
If mulching or composting is not for you, then you will need to dispose of your lawn cuttings. You may prefer to simply rake the clippings up after mowing, toss them in a wheelbarrow, and dispose of them in the bin (make sure its your garden bin, and not a black bin) or even take them to the tip.
This works fine, but taking grass clippings to the tip is a pain, and leaving grass clippings in your bin can quickly take up a lot of space and may begin to produce a horrible smell as they decompose in the bin.
One alternative is to burn off the grass clippings in a garden incinerator bin. This will quickly get rid of the lawn cuttings and the residual ash takes up practically no space in your bin and won’t create any pungent odours.
Better yet, the ash itself is also a fantastic fertiliser! Now you can have the best of both worlds. You will be returning the nutrients back to the soil and your lawn will still look fresh and fantastic after you mow. It’s the perfect outcome!
What To Do With Grass Clippings – Final Words
Do the right thing. Don’t be wasteful. Return the nutrients to your lawn or garden and mother nature will love you for it. It’s also pretty easy and you’ll end up feeling pretty good about yourself. You’ve got nothing to lose!
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