Grass cuttings: a good amendment for the vegetable garden?

We're always on the lookout for manure or compost for our garden and vegetable patch. But what if, in the end, the amendment you were looking for was right under your feet? Yes, these days it's very common to use your lawn cuttings to mulch your garden. But how do you make the best use of it? Here are a few tips on how to make the most of your garden's grass cuttings

A good amendment for vegetables

Because your grass is rich in nitrogen, it's worth putting it at the feet of your plants that need it. Indeed, as it decomposes, your vegetable plants will be able to recover the nitrogen stored in the grass and this will encourage their growth. But will all plants benefit in the same way? No, not quite. For all slow-growing plants such as courgettes and tomatoes, freshly cut grass should be avoided, and the grass clippings should be left to dry in the sun for several days. You can then spread it around your vegetable plants to a depth of around ten centimetres. Fresh grass clippings are ideal for fast-growing crops such as turnips, lettuce and beans. But the layer applied to the base of your plants must be thin and no thicker than three centimetres. In both cases, you can remove it after several weeks and add the clippings to your compost.

Nice protection

There are two major benefits to using grass clippings. Placing a thick layer at the feet of your vegetables helps protect them from the cold. We're experiencing more and more waves of late frosts, so using your grass cuttings as mulch will ensure your plants don't suffer from the cold. What's more, a thick enough mulch will generate heat as it decomposes.

As well as protecting them from the cold, mulching your grass clippings will ensure that your plants don't suffer from the heat or too high temperatures during the hot season. How? It will preserve soil moisture. So you'll need to add less water during the summer.

Farewell to weeding!

Ah, weeding! That chore that every gardener dreads. You should know that if you spread mulch from grass clippings evenly, you'll save yourself this particularly tiring task. If you put a thick enough layer of cut grass at the foot of your flowers, fruit trees or vegetable plants, you'll prevent weeds from growing everywhere. You won't even need to pull them out. Putting this mulch down will smother the weeds already in place.

To make excellent compost, you'll need to mix green and brown matter. The green ones correspond to lawn clippings or even your kitchen waste, the brown ones are made up of dead leaves, branches and shreds. So, throughout the seasons, you can add either green or brown materials to your compost. This will guarantee very high quality compost.