Basics of Composting Your Grass Clippings (Lawn Mowings)

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Basics of Composting Your Grass Clippings
By Jack Greenwood

Do you know that composting your grass clippings is very beneficial to your lawn?
However, you need to be careful, as grass clippings that are not well composted will give off a pungent smell and tarnish the look of your lawn.

The simplest way to deal with grass clippings is to just leave them on the lawn. This is known as grass cycling.
These grass clippings will first dehydrate before decomposing and disappearing from view.
These grass clippings are also natural fertilizers and this means you can save some money by buying fewer fertilizers or spend time bagging the clippings.

Most mowers can be use as grass cycler.
Simply remove the grass catcher from your lawn mower and spread the grass clippings on your lawn.
Make sure you cut the grasses with a sharp blade and only when the grasses are dry.
Wet grasses will clog up your lawn mower.

Photo / pic / image of Grass Clippings.
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Freshly trimmed grasses have a higher level of nitrogen and moisture, which can cause them to clump together.
This will prevent air from circulating in the pile and lead to development of bad odor.
To prevent bad odor from happening, you want to add some carbon material to your compost piles.
These include wood chips, leaves and broken sticks.
These carbon materials will prevent the grass clippings from clumping up and allow oxygen to circulate in the pile.
You can arrange the carbon materials and grass clippings in alternate layers.

Another way to let the oxygen circulate in your pile is aerate it. This means turning the grass clippings and other materials to loosen up the piles. You have to do this regularly if you keep adding grass clippings to the compost piles.

You should bake your grass clippings in the sun for a day before adding them to your compost piles.
This will keep the grass clippings dry and help to prevent them from souring up your compost piles.

You can also add lime to your compost piles to kick-start the decomposing process and prevent the development of molds and nasty odor.

If you have recently applied pesticides or herbicides to you lawn, do not add the grass clippings to your compost piles until the rain has wash off these chemicals completely.

These are some guidelines that you can use to turn your grass clippings into useful compost that are beneficial to you lawn.

Jack Greenwood is the webmaster of GreenLawnCareTips.com which provide information on lawn care and easy lawn maintenance tips. Sign up for your free 7-part Green Lawn Care mini course at http://greenlawncaretips.com today.
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