David Cleland wrote:
Just a quick question

I am going to try and start a compost bin - can you put grass cuttings in
there ?

Yes - if you want, but it is better to mix the grass with leaves and other
compostible materials - otherwise you can finish with a nasty slimy mess
(as I
know from personal experience). Since our council started providing green
recycling bins, I now prefer to let them compost my grass cuttings.

Our council does not do that - so it would be best to keep grass to a
minimum to get the best results ?

A minimum or a maximum according to taste. Once you add more than a
cubic metre at a time it doesn't really matter what the material is the
heap will go hot and rot the stuff down fairly rapidly. You might need
to turn it once to get the outsides done. It rots even faster if there
is some woody material as well but it will work OK with pure grass
cuttings.

You can make smaller amounts go faster with proprietory compost
accelerators like Garotta (cut with cheaper ammonium sulphate).

If you add small amounts of grass cuttings and compact it down then it
will go slimy anaerobic and horrible.

Regards,
Martin Brown