On 25/03/2012 21:24, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:16:21 +0100, Roger Tonkin
wrote:

Now that the lawn mowing season has arrived, I thought I would pass on
my experience of the last few years.

If you read about composting grass, you are told to tear newspaper into
strips and mix it with the clippings. My technique is just to spread a
layer of single sheets of newspaper on top of the heap, then add about
2-3 inches of clippings, then more newspaper etc. I limit this to about
6 inches depth without any other compostable material.

This works a treat for me with no wet sloppy lumps of compressed
uncomposted grass cuttings, and is much easier than tearing up paper!

I would add that I work on a two year composting system, so there is
plenty of time.

I always have more leaves than I can deal with. So some get turned
into leaf mould whilst others are stuffed into black plastic dustbins
with drainage holes in them. Lids on and the leaves dry without
decomposing. These provide me with stuff to mix with grass cuttings.
Two black bins of leaves do me fine for a year and then get
replenished in the autumn.

Someone I used to know simply piled up his mowings (which were
extensive) on a patch of waste ground.The smell caught in your throat.
The heap got quite big and, one day, spontaneously combusted. Seems
even pure grass will rot and heat up in the middle if the pile is
thick enough.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the east end of the totally
dry and sunny Swansea Bay.

Yep. That happened to a relative of mine. Quite a fierce fire too