Mindful Mowings

A soil worker taking a break.

 

Things seem to get so busy in August. Soon I'll be overwhelmed with tomatoes to preserve and hopefully other bounties. However, it is important to remain mindful of what helps your garden grow and to not neglect your soil. And if there is one thing a gardener wants for their soil- it's compost.

 

 

One thing that you can do this time of the year is save all the grass clippings you get from your lawn... heck even your neighbors lawn if they don't want them. Think of this as planning for the future. A savings account for your garden.

 

On a side note, lawns are kind of stupid aren't they? They are desolate places as far as biological diversity goes. And lets not get into the amount of energy wasted on maintaining one. There are several reasons why people have them though. My personal favorite is that lawns aesthetically draw from our ancestral desire to have a level clearing, think African savanna, where one can see far off places and prey (or predators). Also humans naturally seem to be big on trying to manage their environment to suit their needs and what better expression of that than our obsession of beating back the wilderness with a well mowed lawn. 

 

I am guilty of having a lawn myself. I am grateful to have a fairly big yard, but it can be a pain to keep it mowed. Occasionally I remember that all the clipped grass and other vegetation that face the wrath of the push mower... can have a second life in my compost pile.

 

Of course collecting the clippings can be quite the chore. It easily takes me twice the amount of time to mow if I'm using the mulcher bag to collect the grass. Then there is transporting it back and forth to the compost pile. Thankfully my trusty yellow garden cart (a wheelbarrow also works well) comes to the rescue to assist in the transportation of all this organic matter.

If you cut your grass without a mulcher bag- no problem. You can actually treat the grass that is lying around like a mini hay field by letting the sun dry it out for a few days before adding it to the pile. Technically you're supposed to have more brown (carbon) matter than green (nitrogen) going in your compost pile to keep it balanced out. There are actual ratios, but I don't get too fancy with my own compost pile. I pretty much just throw everything in and attempt to mix in a variety of stuff.

 

Mowing can be fun the first couple times in the beginning of the season- though there is no doubt that many folks are probably sick of mowing their lawn by August. I know I am. Just don't forget that all lawn refuse can go in your compost and in good time will help replenish your soil- which will feed your future plants- who in turn will feed a future you!