so mowed the lawns with a catcher on and got a full trailer load but now what should I do with it I want to make compost for the vegetable garden with it any advise! I have lawn clippings and coffee grounds
lemming2,
Nov 23, 10:36am
Lawn clippings will settle into a mass. Do you have any leaves, or small twigs or branches that can break it up a bit and aerate it! Otherwise, you'll need to stir it up a bit every few days or so to stop it just matting down. Makes good compost though, if you can do that.
js4sj,
Nov 23, 10:43am
sweet thinking of purchasing a compost mate as it may make it easier to break it up. I could add a few leaves what about mulch also!
lythande1,
Nov 23, 6:19pm
Lawn clippings are fine. They say to add brown waste as it will go gooey in the middle of the composting process. However, so what. Put it in the corner and let it do it's thing, you still end up with great compost at the end.
Keep that up and just add anything else you have too, kitchen scraps, leaves, whatever.But it really doesn't matter to the end result.
You know, there is all this religion about compost, what do you think happens in the wild, stuff breaks down, regardless of whether it's been mixed into certain proportions or not.
Great if you have other things to mix, not an issue if you don't.
cantabman1,
Nov 23, 6:54pm
I add a little top soil to the clippings to stop the flys breeding in the heat, as it decomposes.Turn it over after 2 weeks and it will break down even quicker.
kateley,
Nov 23, 7:24pm
If you're not in a hurry for the finished compost, you can just pile it in an out of the way part of the garden and leave it. I do various things with my lawn clippings: sometimes I lay wet newspaper in any bare parts of the garden and put 4 - 6 inches of clippings on - it is amazing at keeping the weeds away and eventually disappears. or I spread it along the fenceline behind the shrubs or I make a pile beside the compost bin and as the top layer dries off I put a bucket or two into the bin
lyingnun,
Nov 23, 8:18pm
I use fresh lawn clippings as mulch and they do a great job at keeping down the weeds. They go brown very quickly as they dry in the sun.
funkydunky,
Nov 23, 8:55pm
you have to be careful with fresh lawn clippings as mulch because they release a large amount of nitrogen very quickly and some plants cant deal with that
courtney2004,
Nov 23, 9:52pm
This is what I have done ages ago in the past and it worked well! put your food scraps (but not onions or similar like orange skins) into a bucket save it up for "mow day" we then used to tip it out onto the lawn handful by handful around the lawn! - large lawn :) and mow it up with the lawn mowing task same with some coffee grounds but we dried these first on a sheet of plastic in the sun. Great fun but for us with out big Dixon ride on we just made sure we went and mowed a bit before it went into the shed for the week of just clean grass! the principle behind it was that we mixed everything and everything was fine so compost making was fast.
canz,
Nov 24, 1:37am
This is a good idea, if you hire a lawnmower, you can do the same with branches pruned off tree's or leaves, spread around the lawn, and same as below.
kinna54,
Nov 25, 6:42am
Please be considerate with your clippings tho.as to where you store them, and are you actually going to be able to use them back on the garden.neighbour in flats behind us stacks his in a pile, backing on to the fences of several other properties.to so call "rot down" for garden use. He has a tiny garden full of stones and grasses and succulents. no way is he (and all the neighbours included) ever going to use that much compost.and meanwhile the blowflies hum.and find their way into everyone else's property.
amasser,
Nov 21, 2:10am
kinna54 - it will be rotting (wooden) fences quicker, too.
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