Grass clipping fatigue – ABC Pure Gardener Journal

Following ultimate month’s Australia Day downpour, the lawns in my yard have been rising similar to the dickens. Moist soil and temperatures throughout the mid-20’s are good rising conditions for kikuyu, and though I’d fairly inexperienced lushness than scorched earth, an extreme quantity of improvement is normally a disadvantage when your ride-on mower packs it in and likewise you’ve acquired an acre and a half of ground to cowl. So for a few consecutive days, I slogged through the foot prolonged grass with my push mower.

What a train! Nevertheless additional to the aim, what numerous grass clippings! So many, in actuality, that I wanted to be creative throughout the strategies I used them. Compost was the plain chance, nevertheless the difficulty with lush inexperienced clippings is that they are extreme in nitrogen. To compost an infinite pile of clippings with none carbon primarily based supplies isn’t a terrific thought. The heap will get excessively scorching, combusts, and spews methane into the ambiance. The reply is to combine the clippings with one factor dry and “brown”. I combined some clippings with double the amount of straw and dried leaves, then threw the lot on {{a partially}} decomposed compost heap.

Nevertheless an enormous amount of clippings remained. Some had been dumped straight into the chook pen. My birds go nuts for current grass clippings, and may thankfully spend hours scratching through a pile, consuming grass and pecking out bugs and seeds. I’ve learnt that the trick is to not add too many clippings in a single hit, significantly if additional moist local weather is forecast. They’ll quickly flip slimy and foul.

The remaining clippings had been used as mulch. As soon as extra the necessary factor to avoiding points is to utilize the clippings pretty sparingly. I in no way apply them better than about 5 centimetres deep, apart from after I want to smother some grass runners or weeds invading a yard mattress, after I’ll unfold a deeper layer to exclude gentle.

Finally I whittled the pile of clippings all the best way right down to nothing. And wouldn’t you understand it – on the equivalent day, a flyer from my native council arrived throughout the mail, promoting wheelie bins for the disposal of “inexperienced waste”. Sorry Toowoomba Regional Council, nevertheless I’m not looking for it. I’m an pure gardener. Healthful soil is the backbone of my craft, and what you take note of waste is as treasured to me as water.