Lawn Clippings in the Garden

[dashboardc33]

A friend of mine had told me to place lawn clippings in the garden to prevent the weeds from coming up. I had never heard of this before and was curious if anyone has done this and if it had worked for them? It seems like it would be a lot more work if it doesn't work. Have you heard about this process before?

 

[w_r_ranch]

It depends on what kind of grass. I can tell you that both Bermuda & St Augustine clippings will give you nightmares. Better to just buy decent mulch or compost.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Mulch is a great thing. Lawn clippings alone can be problematic but mixed with shredded leaves they can work well. Lawn clippings alone, especially when wet, can mat together and become a nasty slimy mess.

I use mulch heavily in all my gardens - an in-ground bed 20'x25' down to a 15" x 18" box. Mostly I use a mix of chipped mulch (like you can buy in a bag) or shredded leaves collected from my yard vac and shredder. A down side to woodchip type mulch is if you till it in next spring you can cause problems of too little available nitrogen in the soil.

Many people up at my community garden use straw to mulch veggies.

 

[Oscar Kane]

On the surface this would seem like a great way to utilize the clippings in a way that does not add to our landfills or pollute our storm sewer or waterway systems. There are a very important functions that a good mulch layer will provide to the gardener.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Regardless, it would need to be thoroughly composted for about a year to ensure that it & any seed is dead. If not, it will take root & diminish your garden harvest due to increased competition for minerals/water. That is a fact.

There are many 'myths' regarding the the material composition of landfills & as you can see, 'yard waste' is not really a major factor. Various environmental groups push their ideological agendas & many times those ideas are not based on actual scientific facts.