On 20/08/2014 12:13, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Wed, 20 Aug 2014 02:55:56 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:
Our new house has quite a large lwan and the previous owners have just chucked the grass clippings into a corner. They're in a pile approx 2ft deep and over an area 10ft x 10ft and look to be fairly dry.
If I was to buy/make a wooden compost bin would I be able to use these or does the green material need to be fresh to compost ie will it have lost it's nutrient value by now. I understand that I'll need some browns to mix in as well but can get plenty of shredded paper from work, will this be suitable and if so what sort of mix ratio should I use.
Many Thanks
Jim
No it doesn't need to be fresh to compost, but a heap of pure lawn
cuttings will get a bit slimy, soggy and airless in time. By all means
This only seems to be true if the lawn size is too small and you add it
bit by bit with compaction. I find that using roughly pallette sized
cubic compost heaps 3x in rotation that it doesn't much matter what you
put on provided that you add at least a cubic metre in one go and do not
compact it. The heap goes hot in under 24 hours and you can dispose of
quite chunky pieces of wood pruning in it. I have had mine hot enough to
start smouldering once or twice. It will smell funny of short chain
fatty acids so you don't want it too near your house.
mix it with shredded paper or cardboard, although I can't tell you
what ratio to use. People can get very technical about compost heaps
and the ratios of stuff going onto them, but it really doesn't matter
that much.
Americans tend to obsess over N-C ratios, but in my experience for a
large garden it really doesn't make a lot of difference provided you
don't compact the heap. I only turn mine if I absolutely have to.
Mostly I throw anything not completely rotted to friable loam into the
base of the next heap.
But why go to that bother. Just spread it as it is onto your flower
beds as a roughly 2-inch thick mulch. Worms will quickly take it down
and it'll disappear in a month or two, and the soil quality will be
the better for it. It will also suppress weed germination, although
that's less of a problem in late summer and autumn compared to spring
and early summer when everything grows like fury. I never put grass
cuttings onto my compost heap; always straight onto the flower beds. I
have more than enough stuff for the compost, without grass cuttings.
I compost a lot more than I am supposed to put in my green bin and then
use that for making leaf mould. YMMV.
Regards,
Martin Brown
PS my idea of a large lawn is ~1/3 acre.