Fresh lawn clipping as mulch

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chrisg
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A good deal of talk here about Growmore granular fertiliser. Does any one have suggestions of good suppliers at a reasonable price. I currently pay £21.99 for 25kg at our local garden centre, up from £19.99 last year. With no carriage charge, I would guess that that`s pretty competitive. They also do garden lime at £14.99 - up a lot from last year!
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Ricard with an H
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I have been buying from Elixer garden supplies, they do quite a varied range of fertilizers at about that price. Stronger ones are more expensive. The " Pro-Grower" I bought recently was just over £23 for 25 kilos delivered. I did do some research on pricing but found mostly the same prices but small quantities are expensive.

Growmore with them is £18.99 for 25 kilos delivered.

The "Pro grower" is a lot stronger so I thought for the extra £4 it was better value if I was careful with application.
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Geoff
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That's a good price for Growmore. I like Elixir, they used to quote prices plus delivery and they let me collect a large order once (not far away) which was great value but I haven't enquired about a discount since that started only quoting delivered prices. Some of their stuff is expensive though, like lime. I bought this spring from http://www.gro-welldirect.co.uk/fertilisers but you have to buy a lot to get free shipping. The peat based Clover potting composts they sell are brilliant. I can only justify using them every two or three years to stock up on stuff that keeps so I'll have to find another source of Clover products near home.
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Ricard with an H
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I bought glyphosate from Elixer for a lot cheaper than I could get it from our farmers co-op and the co-op wanted a holding number from me.

A few businesses are slow to catch up with internet buying, sort of like, head-in-the-sand attitude and maybe their main customer base just isn't wired to the internet.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
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chrisg
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Thanks, Ricard with an H. The info about Elixir Garden supplies is most useful, and indeed, they are a good deal cheaper than my local people. Have just placed my first order with them, for Growmore and Garden Lime in 25 kg sizes.
What a nice change not having carriage slapped on the bill!
I note your comment about needing a Holding No to make chemical purchases. As a retired fruitgrower, I often wish that I had not let mine go when I packed it all in.
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Ricard with an H
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I have just bought Kitchen Garden magazine and though I skimmed through I noticed an article on the use of grass clippings as a mulch and I had just started mulching with grass clippings around the base of my mixed hedging. Unfortunately the clippings are already soggy.

My grass cutting is by mulch mower until the grass gets so thick with grass cuttings I have to pick up and it's why I bought two separate machines rather than one machine that does both jobs. It's a silly notion that the design of a mulching blade can lift and throw grass into the collector as well as a proper pick-up mower blade. If I had decided on the dual purpose machine it was recommended to me to have a mulching blade and a pickup blade so I can change over. I know we have discussed this before and I know one of you at least went out and spent over £900 on a multi purpose Honda machine. My two dedicated Viking machines cost around £900 but each one is much lighter than a dual purpose machine, this is very important to a tired old man. The downside of two machines is just the storage space.

On the subject of storage space and grass cutting, if you look at second hand ride on mowers they all look as if they were kept outside because of rust and dirt build up. Storage space, or rather lack of it is a problem even for me with an acre and a huge blokes shed. Now I need another shed, for toys. Of-course.

Right now grass cutting gets difficult for me, because of warm weather and regular rain the fertilized grass grows fast, I can't cut it wet so when I do cut it the grass is too long and the amount I have to cut means a hard day for me. If I don't fertilize the invasive growth that usually grows amongst grasses takes over. I was recommended to buy a couple of goats or sheep, that in itself is more work and responsibility.

The only answer would be to sell up and buy a Suitable retirement home with no garden but then I will just find something else to moan about.

I'm know to at least one pal as Alf. Alf Garnet. (Smile)
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What is the invasive growth Richard? Is it meadow flowers or something nasty. If you stopped fertilising it meadow flowers would have a better chance which I'm sure you know. Could you fence some off and let a neighbour graze something on it and then you could just mow a smaller more manageable bit and not have to look after the animals.

I only put weed and feed on my lawns once a year in the hope they won't grow as fast and they look ok although one is more moss than grass but looks green so I don't mind. I just use a flymow that vacuums up the clippings and can reach all three lawns with a long extension lead, so am talking gon a different scale to you I'm sure.

I'm working on the same idea as you though to reduce the work in the garden to a more manageable amount to suit my age and capabilities and to have an enjoyable garden rather than a challenging slog.
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Ricard with an H
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I have three lawns around the barn that need to be kept tidy, if I don't treat them I get the whole range of weeds imaginable taking over then the grasses suffer so I feed the grasses and mostly do spot treatment with a selective herbicide. The paddock, which is about an acre, could be left to meadow but I have yet to give in too the meadow because it means farm machinery once a year and the paddock looks messy. My neighbours allow their fields to go to meadow but they still have too treat it to stop some of the clumping varieties of grasses and docks, also, the hay from the once a year topping can't be used for animals because we have never got rid of ragwort. Even though the council tell us we are liable if we don't deal with ragwort the council owned road verges are full of it and one or two farmers have whole fields full of it creating wind blown seed.

I grow meadow and wildflower in the Pembrokeshire banks and verges around the property and to date am just about coping with the paddock that grows lots of creeping buttercup, daisies, dandelions and species I'm not sure about. It looks pretty early spring but quickly goes brown by midsummer if left uncut. Cutting after each flowering season of each species seems to work but the paddock always has a lot of dead grass cuttings that don't rot away quick enough.

I leave the dead grass down just like the council do and for the same reason, it's less work.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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Ricard with an H
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Back to the original post about grass clipping, I just tidied a stretch of border that is under and alongside some screening growth that I don't know the name of. The soil was always sticky or hard depending on hydration though after years of dumping grass cutting I appear to have very light soil that no longer holds on to moisture though maybe a spade depth down it's still craggy.

Testament to the value of grass clippings.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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Ricard with an H
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Oh-yes, that reminded me. The best grass klippings I ever had and used around the garden was when I used a blower over a dry period of over a week on the grass cutting from the paddock. I kept blowing them around in much the same way as the farmers round here turn the silage cuttings to dry them, the farmers never pick up and bale wet grass.

The dried cuttings dug into soil nicely though were not very good as a mulch because they are so light the wind blows the mulch away.

I don't have the time or tenacity to do this everytime I cut the paddock grass though if I did I could find a use for dry cuttings. I think some people round here pay for baled grass cuttings but it has to be free of Ragwort.

Ragwort, very nasty stuff.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
Daveswife
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Just spotted this thread and thought I'd join in. I put all our grass cuttings in the compost bins - we have four and often two (or, currently, three) are in the process of being filled. With the grass cuttings I mix in kitchen waste, shredded newspaper, tissues, anything which will rot.

I have a confession to make:- when our neighbours were away last summer and I was entrusted with putting their bins out on bin-day. On garden bin waste day I looked in their bin and took their grass cuttings out. I couldn't let them go to waste, and I know they don't use any chemicals. And last year their recycling bin revealed some very sturdy shoe boxes which have come in handy for storing my craft stuff. Re-use, re-use and re-cycle! However, I think I might have just confessed to theft. Joking aside, I did tell them!
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Ricard with an H
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I only compost grass cuttings now by mixing straw in to stop that build up of slimy material, I suppose having a ready source of straw from the barns next too us makes that easy.

I have daffodils sprouting through grass cuttings, presumably because the cuttings kept the soil warm. On a negative note, the sum total of strong winds and blackbird activity means rotted grass cuttings have been scattered about and looks very untidy.
How are you supposed to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle if it completely removes a wine lover’s reason to live?
Richard.
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I tried growing my Christmas potatoes the old way ,lay them on the ground and cover in straw then keep throwing grass cuttings on top ,the grass cuttings dried then composted down in around two months the spuds did nothing
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