Inorganic grass clippings as mulch?

9 years ago

If fertilizer and weed killer was used on grass, is it bad to use the clipping as mulch or in compost, or is it not much risk?

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Comments (3)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
9 years ago
new cut grass is not a great mulch .. too much potential to make a water impervious mat ... if put on too thick ...

fert is plant food.. i dont see how there could be a downside ... besides the fact.. that its a soil amendment.. so it technically should not be ON the grass ... but used by the plant inside ...

composting with grass can also be problematic .... if not done properly ...

you dont mention the actual products... so its hard to come to any relevant conclusions ...

ken
toxcrusadr
9 years ago
If granular weed killer was used, especially if it was months ago in the spring, I would not be as concerned. If a lawn service sprays herbicide on it, the leaves may have herbicides on them and might cause problems for the garden if used without composting first. I'm not actually sure what lawn services spray but I've seen them spraying. It may be just fertilizer. So ask the owner of the grass clippings what was used, how it was applied and when.

If I pick up mystery bags of grass clippings at the curb, I always compost them first just in case.
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I agree. I use no chemicals on my lawn, so the clippings are great on the veggie garden. Everytime I mow, I bag, and the clippings go on the garden. In fall all the leaves get shredded with the mower and put on the garden beds, at least a foot thick. By spring they are well down, and by planting time broken down into nice crumbly leaf mold. I have switched to a no till format for the past several years and it seems to have helped. I don't have nearly the weeds I used to, the seeds seem to stay dormant when they are buried, but once you till, up they come! Add all the organics you can whenever you can! Steve
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grass (fresh) can and does mat into a giant plug of garbage. the nitrogen load can be an issue (Harbin you're part right, but when do you put a half-pound of fertilizer on the ground? one can easily add that much or more dried weight grass, so the excess N2 can be an issue.... that said, if you put it on green and wet my main issue has been that it can form this giant, stinky plug nothing else gets past--as mentioned, rain sloughs off it. Nothing grows through it, and things in the middle can be over-fed or suffocated by it. Grass can mulch, but too much can be a disaster. Drying it is the best solution I've seen thus far.
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I agree with Kimmsr clippings mulched between the rows to thickly causes odor when watered heavily as the soil doesn't get a chance to breath so I spread it on thinly and apply the clippings more often to give them a week or so to dry out and start breaking down. If you have a whole bunch of clippings and leaves in the fall spread them on your garden and till them in and add water and let nature do its thing and by spring when you are preparing your garden it will be part of your soil.
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@Toxc: I've certainly had a time or two when I've decided to bag/compost some because the amounts were prodigious - but more often than not it turned out the stuff I left behind decomposed on its own pretty well. (I 'experiment' by doing it differently when I feel like it or got tired of bagging or still had beer in the fridge). I very much like your point above that it depends on the lawn and its health - if it's thick and lush and well-established in good soil, taking a few bags out for other purposes once in a while when cutting the lawn is probably not going to affect it much. Going back to the original poster's question, along the same lines, it may also depend on areas of the lawn. I wouldn't say I am systematic about it, but I try to 'return' more organic material (like grass clippings) in areas of the lawn that are thinner or dry or whatever - and 'borrow' from those that crank no matter what the conditions. I have a patch or two that tend to get dry and thin, and some areas around trees - they get extra compost and clippings and mulch, and the well-fed bits of thick lawn get nothing and contribute to some of the others. Can't tell if any of this helps of course but it keeps me out of trouble.
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Kimmsr
9 years ago
"Inorganic" was probably the wrong term and should have been non organic.
The usual time after a lawn is dosed with synthetic fertilizers and/or "weed" killers to wait before using them in the garden is two cuttings. The synthetic fertilizers, while not good for the Soil Food Web, are not really going to do much harm and the "weed" killers will have been washed off the grass blades by then, usually. However, there are some of those "weed" killers that are very persistent and can do serious harm even a year after application so it may be a good idea to know what was used on that lawn.

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Inorganic grass clippings as mulch?

Comments (3)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5

toxcrusadr

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