Grass Clippings: Toss ‘em or Mulch ‘em?

One perpetual question homeowners deal with is what to do with grass clippings. Of course some people don’t worry about it, they just throw all clipping into the trash which adds to the growing problem of methane gas buildup at our landfills. They either don’t have a garden or don’t want to deal with a compost pile. Or, they just have too many weeds in their lawn.

Now, I have to admit I am one of those guys who actually enjoys mowing my lawn. It only takes me about an hour and it is an opportunity to examine the entire yard to see where there are problems developing. Also, I can see where weeds are becoming a problem around the flower and vegetable beds.

This year the issue hasn’t bothered me too much but its about to. What I have done with grass clippings so far is to spread them over a couple new beds I’m developing. You see it takes about a year before any new bed is ready to be planted in, that is using the method I do. There are quicker ways. Anyway, during that year I pile up the grass clippings on the planned beds and let them break down on their own. Occasionally, I’ll add some garden soil, some vegetable matter from the kitchen and some nitrogen fertilizer. But it is beginning to get to the point where those beds are getting pretty deep. I have been piling clippings along the fence on the west side of my yard to help keep down the amount of trimming I have to do with the string trimmer. It works to a point, and it is beginning to look like maybe I should build a new bed along the fence. It would be a great place to grow some flowering vines and some peas and beans.

I have learned that leaving clippings on the lawn does not create thatch as was once commonly believed and since I regularly aerate the lawn the build up of thatch is not a concern. That whole cycle of returning nitrogen and other nutrients back into the soil appeals to me. Plus, its that many fewer bags I have to haul away from the mower. At one point last year I collected nineteen bags of clippings! Usually early in the season, but OMG, I was amazed. Typically its seven to nine bags because I don’t regularly cut the lawn on a set schedule, anywhere from 8-11 days. The taller grass helps hold moisture in the soil and it seems to be working.

My lawn has plenty of earthworms as illustrated by the activity of Robins and Starlings pulling them up.

A couple of years ago, I learned that you should not place grass clippings on a compost pile if you have fed the grass within the previous two weeks. What I do with these is spread them over a concrete pad near the compost pile for a couple of weeks to dry it and then they can go on the pile.

So, toss ‘em or mulch ‘em? I’m going to start leaving them on the lawn and see what happens. Near the end of the year I’ll see whether or not any thatch has built up and go from there. Now, about starting new beds, I may have to ask some neighbors for their grass clippings.

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Starting is Simple, Keeping it Going is the Challenge

As the saying goes: “There is no better time to start than the present”. And so it is with home gardening. Many home gardeners grow their own food out of a love of just doing it, some others do it for the peace of mind that comes with knowing the food they take from their garden is not tainted with pesticides and chemical fertilizers. And of course there is the freshness that can come only from picking from your garden and having it on your dinner table the same day.

With our economy going the way it is, tightening everyone’s purse strings typically means more people are going to join us in the gardening world. If this is something you have never done, then the startup can be a bit overwhelming. I think back to when I grew my first vegetable, it was in a typically small space where some previous renter had previously grown something, so I was fortunate, and very grateful, that the soil had already been used for something other than grass. The one thing I did not know for certain was if the previous tenant used chemicals. I set aside my fears by reasoning that up until that point in my life I probably had already been exposed to chemicals in my food so worrying about what might have been was not going to stop me from planting. I knew I wasn’t going to add any chemicals, so off I went.

I was very much like every beginning gardener in that I chose tomatoes as my first crop. And as is typical of a first time gardener, I planted too many. Needless to say the neighborhood had fresh tomatoes for a time. I just know, as I write this, realized that even that long ago, just as today, very few of my neighbors had a home garden. But, as I mentioned previously, that will probably change. I do hope so.

I also grew some strawberries that first year. The crop that was produced exceeded my expectations and I was ecstatic at the sweet juicy berries we picked from those first plants. Ecstatic over the bounty of the strawberries and the tomatoes and ecstatic that I was actually able to succeed. That was a great confidence booster.

Experience, I have found, learned from your own mistakes and successes, will provide you with far better lessons than just reading about others’ mis-adventures.

The best way to start is to put something in the ground, even if it is unproductive the roots from that first growth will provide a starting point for bringing soil nutrients locked below the surface up to where future plants can take advantage of them. The most miraculous thing I have learned from gardening is that a plot of ground that seemingly will never support anything, such as hard packed clay, will grow healthy plants that will produce a monstrous harvest as long as you feed the soil.

Soil will quickly come to life with worms and microbes simply by tilling compost into it. By keeping the soil cool in the summer with mulch and maintaining a steady, somewhat constant temperature through winter, also with mulch, you will already win over half the battle of maintaining a healthy and thriving garden.

Worms work to aerate the soil and breakdown large chunks of compost into smaller ones that serve to keep the soil loose to allow air and water to pass through. This ‘looseness’ of the soil, called friability, will also aid plant roots in their search for nutrients. Worms and microbes basically keep the plot refreshed through their constant churning. As long as you feed them they will be there for you. The thing you don’t want to do goes against what may at first seem natural. You don’t want to over-till the soil. It is more beneficial to ‘work’ compost into the top few inches of soil with a pitch fork by gently turning over the soil. A mechanical tiller will tend to cut up the soil too fine and unfortunately cut up the worms as well.

Even if you will not live in the house you are in for very long, starting a garden will prepare the soil for the next person. Perhaps this will be just the encouragement that next person needs to grow their own food. Imagine for a moment if everyone was to do this with their current yard, before too long, grass won’t be taking up so much acreage on this planet, there will be a decrease in the amount of chemical fertilizers used to feed the lawn, and you will have helped in progressing the natural evolution toward a more organic world. After all, there is far more residential property than commercial property so each of us, when we start a home garden, will be increasing the total amount of farm land. Plus, every little bit you do adds to your knowledge base for when you do have space to grow that dream garden. Every new garden plot helps the global community.

Then, if you would post your results to your very own blog, or leave comments on someone else’s blog describing your experiences, both good and bad, you would be adding to the world’s knowledge pool and that is always much appreciated by the next beginner. Perhaps you will learn of a hidden talent that you can specialize in.

You really do not require a huge farm to grow everything you need. You can grow a surprising amount of plants in a very small space. If you have a neighbor who has a garden, ask if you can offer to help weeding or planting. You will gain valuable advice and perhaps even a few plant starts to get your own garden going. Gardeners are an endless supply of knowledge, some of which you cannot learn from books. And I have never met a gardener who does not want to talk about their garden or share advice.

Dig a hole in the ground, fill it in with store bought garden soil (compost can come later), stick a plant in the soil, feed it with non-synthetic fertilizer and watch it grow. You may not get a huge harvest from this first planting but, like every new undertaking, baby steps count. You will gain confidence to try something bigger next year.

If you don’t have a yard, use a container. Many plants do great in containers, you just need to feed and water them more often and make sure the container has good drainage.

Also, don’t be afraid to plant vegetables among your flowers. The added dimension and diversity will benefit both types of plants and prevent any bare spots that would otherwise invite weeds.

For more advanced tips on starting and maintaining a garden plot, see here.

I am willing to bet that once you gain a little experience you will want to continue growing your own food, even after the economy gets back on its feet and it is no longer a ‘necessity’ to grow your own food. So, if you do find you enjoy maintaining a garden maybe keeping it going won’t be such a challenge after all.

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Robins in winter

I just learned something new today. Robins don’t always fly south for the winter!

There are two Robins in my backyard as I type this. Looking on the internet for information lead me to a site called, simply enough, American Robin.

Almost every Robin migrates south to escape the cold but some actually stay even as far north as Canada. They have been known to survive blinding blizzards, ice storms, and nights as cold as 30 below zero without human help. I am amazed! Whatever happened to looking to the Robin as the first sign of spring?

The website says that their body temperature under the feathers is about 104 degrees thanks to their thick down feathers that help hold body heat in. They produce body heat by shivering. And they get the energy to shiver from their food. This is where I know I can help. And you too.

Sometimes robins gather in huge flocks in winter. Doug Von Gausig found a "robin convention" of about 1000 robins near Sedona, Arizona, and recorded their chatter. Check out his website for a recording of Robin music.

I have never seen more than five or six Robins at one time. And never really together, they run all around the neighborhood looking for worms and fruit. To see a 1,000 of them at one time must really be something.

Yesterday, I saw about seventy or eighty Cedar Waxwings sitting in the fruit trees in my backyard. First time I ever saw this bird anywhere! Very exciting times here at Utah Valley Gardens!

They were all facing southwest because there was a very strong wind blowing from that direction. I figured they must have landed here to rest and to get out of the wind for awhile. They stayed for about 40 minutes.

Both of these birds like berries so I am going to follow the advice of this website and set out some:

# fruits: cut up apples, pears, oranges; blueberries, cranberries, and other berries; raisins and currants
# softened dog food kibble
# meal worms, earthworms, and red worms

Robins never eat bird seed--their stomach and intestines are not designed to digest them.

The first problem with robin feeders is that most robins have never heard of such a thing! It never occurs to them to explore their winter areas for human handouts. One of the easiest ways to help robins discover a winter feeder is to put it near a bird bath. They recognize those readily because they are all over mine in the summer.

The second problem with robin feeders is that the food can freeze. Mike Houle of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, figured out a good way to solve this problem. He filled a heated dog dish with peat moss, sawdust, and other soft matter. Then he put the worms in that. The heat from the dish keeps the bottom of the sawdust and peat moss unfrozen so the worms stay alive until a robin digs in!

I wish I could take credit for these beautiful photographs, but I took these off of the web.

Here is a list of the best varieties of berry shrubs for any berry eating bird.

# bittersweet
# bayberry
# snowberry
# sumac
# mountain ash
# crabapple
# hackberry
# hawthorn
# red cedar
# highbush cranberry
# chokecherry

Look around and see if maybe there any Robins hanging around your yard that you can help out. You might be surprised.

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Bumpy, rough lawns

I have one of these. It was bumpy when I moved here. It was bumpy, lumpy and treacherous to walk on. And mowing was no picnic either. Almost every neighbor I talked to about it told me the same thing. They told me that the lumpiness is caused by an over-abundance of earthworms. I believe earthworms in the lawn is a good thing. Earthworms anywhere is a good thing. From hearing them talk this soil should be rich enough to grow anything I wanted without having to add anything to the soil. I was thrilled to hear that this might be the case, but I found it difficult to believe that the noble earthworm was the cause of my bumpy, rough lawn.

Since I had never lived anywhere where I had to take care of a lawn, I was a lawn-maintenance virgin. And as such, I could not dispute what I was being told so I began reading and searching for other causes of bumpy, rough lawns.

There are several possible reasons for bumpy, rough, uneven lawns. Older lawns become uneven and bumpy as the Turfgrass gradually thins. These lawns have less foliar growth and cushioning effect than thick, dense Turfgrass.

When I first moved in the grass was browning and thin in some areas and so I thought this must be why this lawn is lumpy. The solution seemed clear, if I simply feed it and water it on a regular schedule I could ‘save’ this lawn by myself. This great delusion began in the Summer of 2004. By the end of 2005, after following the commonly prescribed practice of weed & feed at regular intervals, it was very clear to me that what I was doing was not working. After two Summers, two Autumns, and one Spring, I still had no idea how to save this lawn and I still had brown areas, thinning grass and a bumpy, rough surface along with ever increasing water bills.

During this time of indoctrination by fire, I had dug up the lawn in several places looking for these nefarious earthworms but never did find more than a handful. I didn’t find the rich mountains of castings that I was told was creating the ankle-twisting mis-adventures that I had come to expect from simply walking across the lawn.

Other reasons for lumpiness could be poor maintenance, shade, insects, diseases and other factors. I suspect it was poor maintenance. There was no way it was shade because the lawn is in full sun all day long except for under the fruit trees and the grass was lush and thick there. As far as insects and diseases, I didn’t see anything that convinced me that these were the causes. And there are the ‘other factors’. I don’t have a clue what these could be. Maybe moles, voles and other rodents but that is not the case. Never saw any of these here.

Everyone said I should aerate. That should level it out in no time. They reasoned that aeration helps open up the soil to allow air and water down to the grass roots and thereby create a more lush turf. I can’t help but think that if I have such an abundance of earthworms then my lawn is already very well aerated by them. But, I had someone come out to aerate anyway, because it is good practice to do so. The ground was so hard that it was basically a waste of time.

So, if the ground is too hard to aerate, then earthworms is not the cause of my lumpiness.

Spring of 2006 came around and I was not looking forward to fighting a loosing battle so I spoke with a lawn service guy and decided to let them take care of it all for a couple of years. I figured I would pay close attention to when they came around and make note of what they used and then I would be able to take it from there. It is now two years later and my lawn has never looked better. But, I still have lumps.

Their advice was pretty much the same as everyone else who has lived around here for years. Aerate. Is this just a commonly accepted ‘cure-all’ for lawn problems? Even though it obviously does not work.

Just today I read an article that mentioned the freeze/thaw cycle here in Utah. I suppose it is the same in every northern state but it never occurred to me that this might, if not cause the problem then at least it could be contributing to the problem. If this is the case then the only course of action now is to sprinkle top soil and reseed every year. This may have to be the way to go because I don’t think it will ever ‘cure’ the lumpiness.

I guess I am just going to have to live with it. Or, I could replace all of it with wildflowers and sell my lawn mower. Now that sounds like a great alternative.

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A Gardening year: preparing the plot

For all of you who have felt the urge to start a garden, congratulations for rediscovering our agrarian heritage. That urge is rooted in a time when farming, for the sake of feeding ourselves, was once so necessary, so much a part of the fabric of our lives, that it would never occur to us that we would not ever have a food garden or farm. A backyard garden may be small but it is still a farm. With the proliferation of cheap, readily available food year-round from supermarkets and farmers markets, we no longer have to farm. The trade-off is that we have lost touch with our heritage.

Growing your own food, once a necessity and a chore, has become more of a treat. For the fresh taste that you simply cannot get from store bought produce. For the variety of produce that supermarkets cannot provide. For the sheer joy of creating life out of your own backyard, through your own toil and sweat. These attributes, experienced by home gardeners everywhere, cannot be measured.

Gardening is a pleasure for all your senses. Feeling the suns warmth on the almost silky smoothness of well-worked soil as it flows through your fingers, smelling its earthy almost sweet aroma, seeing the soil come alive with worms and other critters, tasting the freshness of vegetables and fruit that you have grown, hearing the wildlife that your efforts have attracted, all of these aspects make gardening worthwhile.

Just because we are surrounded by row after row of tract housing or stacked up buildings doesn’t mean we can’t grow something beautiful and/or edible.

Once you have picked and tasted the fruits of your labors gardening can truly consume you. You will end up spending hours lost in the Zen-like reverie of tending your garden that will force you to re-prioritize your place in this world. You will find a peace that you cannot find anywhere else.

If you are serious about gardening, you will soon learn it is as much about tending to your psychological well being as it is about tending to nature. One of the first things you need to do is put yourself in the frame of mind that it needs to be enjoyable. Once you have lost the fun factor then you may as well go find something else to entertain yourself.

Gardening is fun, but not in the way of anything else that offers the instant gratification that is necessary for some people. It is long term. After all, it is nature and nature is not an overnight proposition. It requires dedication, it requires patience, and it requires you to understand that there will be failures. Sometimes these failures can be of your own making, often times a failure can be attributable to mother nature herself. Do not take it personal. Nature has failed billions of times and yet its beauty can be found everywhere.

I think it is important to note that gardening is for more than just our health and enjoyment. We are creating a habitat for natures denizens. Insects, both good and bad, birds, both beautiful and not so beautiful, mammals, large and small, and of course us.

Now, if you are still here and still want to go forward with turning that boring and non-productive lawn into the beautiful and bountiful flower or vegetable patch of your dreams, then please read on.

You should decide now if you want to build raised beds or dig trenches around your plot. Walls and trenches are an attempt to keep the surrounding lawn from encroaching into your beds. If you dig a trench you will have to re-dig it every once in awhile, until you get tired of doing it and end up installing a barrier of some kind anyway. The advantage of raising the bed now and surrounding it with boards or concrete blocks is that the soil will tend to stay looser because there is less chance of you walking on it.

Turning your chosen plot of earth from lawn to garden is not something that happens overnight. After all, it took awhile for that lawn to fill in so it makes sense that any plants you put in will take awhile to thrive. You are going to need good quality soil, access to water and properly selected plants that will survive in the amount of sunlight that hits your plot.

Healthy soil is key to healthy plants. Whether your soil is ideal to begin with or if it has been laying barren for years, keep in mind that you will have to amend it every year. A combination of natural materials such as soil and compost, composted or aged animal manure, leaves, grass clippings, shredded newspapers, cardboard, and/or anything else that breaks down in the soil will go a long way towards maintaining that healthy soil texture that supports microbial life. Gardening is more about feeding the soil than about feeding the plants. Healthy soil needs to be loose enough to allow roots to easily pass through yet thick enough to support the plant so that it can stand up as it grows larger. Soil needs to also be able to retain water through periods of drought without having to water it every day and adding natural materials will keep this quality.

The plot you choose ideally should be no wider than three or four feet, so you can reach across it without stepping on it. Stepping on it compacts the soil, not good for growing things in. Some people place a board across the bed or stepping stones to prevent stepping on the soil. Outline the area with a garden hose, bricks, string, sticks, flour, spray paint or whatever to get a clear picture of the final shape of the bed. Nothing is really final in gardening, we all make adjustments as we go but once you have the layout identified the area needs to be cleared of all grass, plant roots, rocks and other debris.

Existing grass can be either removed or smothered.

To remove the grass, you will use either hand tools (turf edger and a square shovel) or a machine called a sod cutter. In either case you will be left with pieces of sod that you can either place in other barren areas of the lawn or throw onto the compost pile (lay them upside down on the pile to help smother the grass and expose the roots to the sun). After the plot is clean, break up the top eight to twelve inches of soil with a pitchfork. This tool is great for this job as you are not necessarily looking to dig up the whole area, just open it up so water and soil amendments can reach down into the substrate. You might be tempted to rent or borrow a roto-tiller but I caution you to resist the urge. Roto-tillers tend to more completely destroy the soil structure and there is growing evidence that soil just below where the tines reach can become a hard pan which is difficult for plant roots and water to break through.

Next, spread top soil mixed with compost or composted animal manure. What we are doing here is improving the soil texture. The manure is a great way to attract earthworms, the true workhorses of the garden. Spread the mix about 3” thick and then work it into the top six to eight inches of soil with the pitch fork. After digging it all in and leveling the plot, sprinkle the area with a gentle shower of water until just before puddles form. This allows the soil to settle, pushing out any air bubbles.

Smothering the grass can be done with clear plastic sheeting or newspapers. Use the plastic sheets in the summer so the heat of the sun bakes the grass until it dies (3-4 weeks). Use the newspaper method at anytime of the year by piling on 8-10 sheets and holding it down with soil until the grass dies (several months). The newspaper method is best done in fall and allowing it sit over winter. A way to speed up either process is by spraying Glyphosate on the grass first. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in many products on the market such as Hi-Yield and Round-Up. This chemical is considered the safest in that it will break down and become harmless within 10-14 days. I have used this method and it works great. After the grass is dead, the grass becomes a mulch and you can now pile on top soil mixed with compost or composted animal manure.

As the soil ‘ages’ you will begin to see earthworms throughout the plot, this is an excellent sign that you have the start of a fairly well balanced ecosystem.

When choosing plants for your new plot, pay particular attention to your growing zone and light/shade requirements. Full sun means at least six to eight hours, and more than this can be too much.

Be sure to follow growers recommendations for the proper width and depth of the hole. Then fill the hole with good garden soil and some fertilizer, time-released 10-10-10 is probably best.

Doesn’t it feel wonderful to know that you have taken the first steps towards bringing life up out of the ground and reconnected with your past?

Well this is enough for now. I’ll cover compost and mulch in another posting. So, until then good luck and have fun.

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