You may think that it is not worth your time to bag your grass clippings. Instead, you just toss them into leaf bags. Maybe you bag your lawn because you like the manicured look of your lawn without grass clippings. Whatever the case, if you have a lawn that you mow, you can use those clippings as a low cost organic gardening tool.
Why should you use your grass clippings in the garden?
- Weed Control
When I first started vegetable gardening many years ago, I didn’t use any type of mulch and I spent countless, fruitless hours trying to have a weed-free garden. Did it mention it was “fruitless”?!?! I was raised using the black weed fabric. That stuff worked great, except you had to buy it every year. We tried to reuse it, but because of the holes in it, it was hard to plant in the same spots every year. If you have a thing for the “perfect looking garden”, this may be a good option for you. However, using weed fabric is an expensive weed control fix.
- Moisture Control
Mulching, whether using fabric, hay, grass, newspapers or anything similar is great at keeping the soil moist on those hot summer days. There is a time and place for watering the garden but I prefer to do other things with my time than watering. By using mulch, it cuts down on my overall time in the garden.
- It’s Easy!
Other than the initial time spent spreading the grass clippings, you don’t have to do it again for the rest of the year. Of course, you certainly can keep adding more mulch every time you mow (if you are using grass clippings) but I have other uses for grass clippings.
- It Enhances the Soil
You won’t see the benefits of mulch that first year, but every year after that, you will notice your soil slowly improving. Yes, there are other things you can add to your garden to improve the soil faster but by mulching you are accomplishing more than one thing at a time.
- It’s Virtually Free
Ok, other than the time and gas it took to mow your lawn, (which you would be doing anyway) the grass clippings are free. It adds to the low cost method of organic gardening.
A few words of caution:
The first thing you need to be aware of is that if you use any chemical weed killer on your lawn, whether it be a liquid spray or a granular type, you will NOT want to use those clippings for a while. You will want to mow a few times before using the clippings. That will give the chemicals time to dissipate before putting the clippings around your plants. I can not tell you how much remains in and on the grass after applying chemicals, but I know that I tend to be cautious about what I put around the plants that I am growing for food.
The second thing you need to know is that when you bag your lawn clippings and put them in a pile to be spread around the garden, they will almost instantly begin to decompose and produce a LOT of heat. Heat is a great way to get your mulch pile activated, but if you use super hot, starting-to-decay clippings around your plants, you run the risk of burning tender plants, especially if they are young. I would recommend you spread your grass clippings as soon as you can after mowing your lawn. Frequently, my husband and I will mow and mulch, tag-team style. He will mow around the yard and when his clipping bag is full, he dumps them out and I immediately spread them around my plants. It eliminates the heat issue.
The Logistics
Hopefully, I have convinced you to start adding mulch to your garden. But you may be wondering how you are supposed to do it. Trust me, this is so easy that my kids are able to help me with it.
The first thing to do is make sure your weeds have been either removed or loosed and uprooted. I have a three-pronged tool that I use to loosen up any weeds. This is usually all you need to do to kill the weeds before putting down the mulch. You may get a strong, stray weed that is able to survive the uprooting and mulching, but usually they are easy to pull out if they show their ugly heads.
After I have my weeds under control, I start with my pathways. By keeping the paths well mulched, I eliminate the whole dirty shoe problem. I want to be able to go out to my garden, pick the produce and then go back to the house without having to worry about my shoes getting filthy. If you have enough grass clippings in the early spring, I would suggest doing this area first. Make sure you have sufficiently weeded the area prior to applying the mulch so the weeds don’t grow up through it.
After the pathways, I start to apply mulch around my largest plants, that is usually my tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes. The larger the plant, the harder it is going to be to mulch around, so plan ahead and think about which plants are going to be growing the fastest and need to be mulched first.
Continue putting mulch around your plants until you have mulched your entire garden. I don’t mulch around my spinach or lettuce when the plants are really young since they seem to easily blend in with the mulch and then they just seem to die. I haven’t figured out why that happens, but it just does.
After you have mulched your garden, you need to occasionally pull a few stray weeds that manage to survive the mulching process. I have had tremendous success using this method of mulching and despite the initial time it takes to do, it is very much worth it in the end.
- What about newspaper?
Some people put newspaper down first before putting the grass clippings on top of it. I used to do this when I first started to mulch. However, one year I didn’t have newspaper when I was working on the mulch and I did not notice a significant difference between the two. So, I have never used newspaper since.
The next time you mow your lawn, save those clipping, spread them in your garden, and watch your low cost organic garden flourish.
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