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Mulch, bag, or blow?

2

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  • Busy-LizzieBusy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043
    I wanted to click on bagged (compost) and mulch, as we do both, but it wouldn't let me. In fine weather when the grass is short we use a mulching mower. When the grass is damp or a bit long we put it on the compost.
    Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
  • BigladBiglad Posts: 3,265
    Bagged
    All mine goes in the council garden waste collection. Mainly because that bin is a lot closer to the lawns than the compost bin and I'm a lazy beggar! Also, to keep the green/brown balance in the dalek. All that grass would possibly give rise to a sloppy, wet mess.
    East Lancs
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Bagged
    @BenCotto some sit on mowers do just blow the cut grass out the side and it then has to be raked up.  Useful if you have a lumpy lawn or grass which is so rich and moist it simply won't go up the pipe to the collecting bags.   We had one for our Belgian garden which had very lush grass and always clogged the collector tubes.

    Now it's died we've bought a collector model and the cuttings either go on the compost heap or down as an initial weed suppressant mulch when we start marking out a new bed in the veg plot. 
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    Bagged
    Thanks Obelixx. I had forgotten about those mowers.
    Rutland, England
  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    Bagged
    I collect it in the mower's grass box and it goes in the compost bin - no bagging, but there wasn't an option for straight-to-the-compost-bin.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    yeah. I really should mow the lawn. 
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • WilderbeastWilderbeast Posts: 1,415
    Bagged
    Every but of grass goes directly to the compost bin along all the neighbours, approximately 4 wheelie bins a week
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    A mixture, the wilder bits of lawn are mulched, as is the main lawn if it's dry and hasn't grown much, paths and the front verge are bagged and then either added to the compost or this year I tried an experiment, I mulched my broccoli plants with about 1 inch depth of fresh lawn clippings. it reduced the weeds (fat hen) amazingly. in the unmulched end I had a carpet of weed seedlings, on the mulched side I got about 10.
    My mower can blow it out the side, but then it just leaves a row of clippings. much like a wheat field after a combine has been, and of course when you turn round to do the next row you run over it all again.
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    BenCotto said:
    Two questions for @Blue Onion

    Do American gardeners really use a blower to pile up lawn clippings? I would have thought that would be a fruitless task.

    Do they not compost the mown grass? Or was composting what you meant by bagging? 
    @BenCotto
    Most blow them out the side of their mower and leave it on the previously mowed area. When you are mowing 3+ acres twice a week, you don't have time for bagging and such.  Most residential areas probably bag, many of my neighbors do.  We don't have a green waste though, so they dump it in the landfill garbage bins.  I'm the only person I know who composts.  
    Utah, USA.
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    I am surprised actually, I was expecting most people mulched.  I suppose because that was what I did in the UK with my little plug in electric push mower.  Now I mostly bag as well, and spread it directly as a mulch around my veg beds.  
    Utah, USA.
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