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- rainbowgardener
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One of the things we learned when we had the book club discussion of Teaming with Microbes, was that veggies and other annuals tend to do better with a higher nitrogen mulch, whereas trees and shrubs do better with a higher carbon, more fungal mulch. So for veggies, grass clippings, coffee grounds, pulled weeds, cotton seed meal, alfalfa, kelp, etc. Not everyone has it available, but I have discovered that the duckweed that covers our big pond is very high nitrogen. It is great for heating up my compost pile, but this year I may also try it as mulch.
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I mulch my leaves and find that nothing else is really any better. But any carboniferous material attracts nitrogen.
I just moved into my house in 2009 - too late to do anything but mulch leaves. I added nitrogen to stabilize and just piled it up for last year's garden.
This year I'm putting in some new beds and while I'm doing that I'll mulch the leaves as I cut the grass for the first time which is nitrogen rich and adds enough moisture to light off a composting action.
The bonus that comes with leaf mulch is that worms love the stuff and by using it on your garden the worms will aerate the soil and enrich the fertility.
I just moved into my house in 2009 - too late to do anything but mulch leaves. I added nitrogen to stabilize and just piled it up for last year's garden.
This year I'm putting in some new beds and while I'm doing that I'll mulch the leaves as I cut the grass for the first time which is nitrogen rich and adds enough moisture to light off a composting action.
The bonus that comes with leaf mulch is that worms love the stuff and by using it on your garden the worms will aerate the soil and enrich the fertility.
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No, grass clippings won't leave seeds and eventually the clippings will work themsevles into the soil. I use Mushroom Compost for my mulch, along with my own compost that I have "made". I try to use those mulches that have the biggest bang for my garden and so far my home compost works the best. Along with coffee grounds that I collect from my local StarBucks. I work those into my soil and wow does my garden love that. (And so do the veggiest too! )
If the grass has went to seed when it is cut and was then placed in the garden, yes, you could get grass growing.Joshua wrote:I'm a newb and only gardening for a full year, but wont using grass clippings and leaves in the garden make for a bunch of weeds from all the seeds.
Leaves don't have any seeds...
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- Green Thumb
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I'm a big fan of the coffee ground method for gardens with veggies and greens(I say that bec some people grow just flowers etc) and my fiance and I are both heavy coffee drinkers so its not hard to just take the filter and dump the grounds in a bucket at your feet by the coffee pot and throw out the filter...why clogg up your trash can with it when u can feed your garden with it? that's just me I guess, but then again a lot of people prob don't know about feeding with coffee grounds and used tea leaves though
- rainbowgardener
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Agree with above, there's no way grass clippings can have seeds unless the grass has gone to seed when you mow. And usually that would mean the grass was 2 feet tall and you would scythe it or something not mow. Leaves don't have seeds also. I mulch with both in my yard. They don't add weeds they subtract (suppress) them.
Re the coffee grounds, they are a great, high nitrogen additive for your compost pile. All our coffee grounds with the filter go in the compost pile. To mulch with, just spreading them on top of the soil, they tend to crust over and repel water. I sometimes fork a little bit of coffee grounds into the soil in containers, but I don't just leave it on top.
Re the coffee grounds, they are a great, high nitrogen additive for your compost pile. All our coffee grounds with the filter go in the compost pile. To mulch with, just spreading them on top of the soil, they tend to crust over and repel water. I sometimes fork a little bit of coffee grounds into the soil in containers, but I don't just leave it on top.
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