a proper lawn maintenance gets you the grass which makes chilling outside in the summer an ecperience. But what should you do with the grass clippings after mowing? Leave them on the lawn? Start a compost pile?
These lawn mowing tricks about grass clippings will help fine everything up so you can enjoy your lawn
The Environmental Protection Agency says wastes from your yard account for 18% of the refuse that we dump into landfills. rising to 50% during the growing season!
Approximately 75% of this waste comprises grass clippings (circa 1,500 pounds annually), with the remainder being leaves and limbs.
Given that landfills are starting to run out of capacity/space, and many have banned grass clippings anyway. don’t you think its about time we put our grass clippings to better use and step up our gardening skills?
What Are Grass Clippings?
Grass clippings are the grasses that are left behind in a grass catcher by your mower when you cut your lawn. Grass clippings are short pieces when you mow your lawn following the one-third rule “never mow more than (one-third) height off of your grass in a one mowing session”.
If you ignore your mowing responsibilities, grass clippings can be longer.
So here are 9 Amazing ideas to use grass clippings you probably never heard or thought of…
9. Liquid Fertilizer
Grass clippings can be made into an effective and 100% organic liquid fertilizer just in a few days. N-P-K level of this liquid grass clipping fertilizer is around 1 – 0.5 – 3.1. To make this liquid fertilizer– fill a bucket of any size with 2/3 part of fresh grass clippings. Fill the bucket with water and close the lid. Let it steep for 3 days and your grass clipping liquid fertilizer is ready to use.
Soak the plants thoroughly using this solution. Depending on the size of the plant, apply this solution from a half cup to one quart, for plants growing in pots apply until it starts to seep out from bottom holes. To learn in detail about this grass clipping liquid fertilizer
8: Animal Feed
Grass clippings can help to make silage for cattle feed. Some tests have discovered that silage made from recent clippings has a protein content of 18.2percent, and digestible matter content of 68percent, much higher than hay, which typically averages a digestible matter content of about 59percent.
keep in mind, to feeding cattle, grass clippings may be a viable supplementary food source for sheep. the
conclusion from several studies indicates that grass clippings can be effectively and safely utilized as
inexpensive, renewable feed sources for these woolly creatures. Even if you don’t have animals yourself, check if your local farm owners or your neighbors would be keen on using your grass clippings for their cattle and sheep.
note: we shouldn’t use grass clippings that have been in contact with chemicals to feed animals.
7: Compost
If you don’t want to keep them on the lawn, one of the best and easiest ways to put grass clippings into
good use in your garden is by composting them. Once you prepare and treat the clippings in the right way, you will be able to recover/recycle the nutrients from the grass in other areas of your garden.
A convenient compost pile requires a mix of brown and green materials. Freshly cut grass is considered
‘green’, and so will need to be balanced out by the addition of some brown material, like branches, dry
leaves, twigs or paper. When adding fresh grass clippings, keep in mind to turn the grass into the pile to
better enhance aeration and prevent compaction.
by preference, you can leave your grass clippings to completely dry out and turn brown when, unsurprisingly, they are considered brown material!
6. Mulch
Mulch is the term used to describe any type of material that is spread over the surface of the soil as a
covering. Organic-mulches assist to retain moisture, suppress weeds, improve its fertility and keep the
soil cool. Grass clippings, either dried or fresh, make the best organic mulch that contains high amounts of nitrogen, something all plants need to grow and flourish.
Lay a quarter-inch thick layer of fresh clippings around the flower and plant beds for free, organic mulch. If it’s thicker, the grass won’t be able to break down fast enough and may begin to smell as it decomposes. Dried clippings – which make a great mulch for vegetable crops – can be spread on thicker.
5. Lawn Clipping Tea
tea made out of compostable items or compost is an excellent way to overcome diseases, increase the number of nutrients available to plants, speed up the breakdown of toxins, and improve the nutritional quality and flavor of vegetables.
To combine a yard cutting tea, put your newly cut grass in a bowl of water and permit to soak. Useful supplements like potassium, nitrogen, phosphorus, chlorophyll and amino acids will siphon from the grass into the water. Following 3 days, strain off the fluid and utilize it to encourage your plants by pouring onto the roots or splashing on the clears out.
4. Raised Beds
Raised bed planting is outstanding amongst other approaches to plant – discover why here! On the off chance that you keep up a compartment plant or raised beds, at that point, you’ll be upbeat to hear they are an extraordinary method to go through your overabundance grass clippings.
To enhance soil quality and lift your yield, consider using the Lasagna Method of soil blending. It includes making a few layers of material to fill the informal lodging of your plants.
In the lower locales of the beds, layer one section grass clippings with two sections destroyed leaves – these will gradually compost after some time into rich soil.
The clippings ought to be layered daintily to avert tangling. Once the beds are full (inside six to twelve crawls from the best), include a compostable hindrance like cardboard and fill the rest of your picked soil blend.
3. Leave them on the Lawn
In case you’re making progress toward a flawless garden, you most likely expel your grass clippings each time you cut. still, you are ransacking the grass of certain supplements that it needs to flourish.
In the future, leave your short clippings to lie, as they will separate rapidly, sustaining the grass and turning it an ideal shade of green.
Actually, grass clippings can add move down to 25 % of the supplements that development expels from the soil! These clippings also allow useful nightcrawlers and microorganisms that deal with/process this grass and keep up sound soil.
nevertheless, clippings that are too long will not separate and will leave the yard looking unattractive. To continue a strategic distance from this, you may need to cut all the more regularly
In spite of more regular cutting, despite everything you’ll be sparing time by failing to gather the clippings! Studies explain that it demands, less general investment to clip or cut off all the more regularly and leave clippings on the yard
2. Lawn Fertilizer
Leave the clippings on your lawn and they will save up to 25% consumption of lawn fertilizers. But only leave grass clippings on the lawn if they are short, shorter clippings break down fast. Some lawn mowers are equipped with ‘mulching mode’.
use this to cut grasses into very small fragments without picking them up.
For this, you’ll need to mow regularly with a mower equipped with mulching function, this technique is not suitable for tall grasses.
1. in Vegetable Garden
grass clippings in the vegetable garden can make it more functional.
Nitrogen present in grass brings a big boost to vegetables, especially those which have large nitrogen needs: all the green vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, spinach and other vegetables like cucumber, squash, zucchini, potato, and pumpkin.
If you let your grass clippings to dry out for several days, you can use them as thick mulch, for example, to protect strawberries. You can also use this thick mulch to cover the shrubs, circumference of trees and thus prevent weeds from growing at their feet.