Grass cutting - mulching or collecting?

For anything to do with the garden and pool

Do you mulch or collect grass?

Poll ended at Sun Jan 29, 2012 9:16 am

Mulch
4
57%
Collect
3
43%
 
Total votes: 7

la vache!
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Grass cutting - mulching or collecting?

Post by la vache! »

Any comments on what you do with the grass cutting for your properties?
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Lesblancs
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Location: Morbihan, Bretagne

Post by Lesblancs »

I actually do both, depending on time available, length of grass etc etc.

Before the start of the season, the sheep get first go of the field, followed by the tractor if the grass is still long. In season I usually cut the main field using the tractor with grass topper. This gives a pretty good finish if I keep the grass short and takes hardly any time.

I cut the grass around the gite with the ride-on mower, and the sheep get the grass cuttings. A good eco system eh 8)
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CarolineH
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Location: Nr Dinan, Brittany, France

Post by CarolineH »

I think it depends on the quality of your lawn - if you have a beautifully manicured lawn and are prepared to mow 3 times a week with a top quality mulching system, you can get away without collecting.

I have several different patches of lawn at different qualities - I can get away with mulching on the front lawn because it's a finer grass and disappears quite nicely. The other lawns have been sown by a farmer (using English ryegrass - but still pasture quality) onto fields that have been used for as long as anyone can remember to grow wheat and maize - there are tons of nitrates in the soil and it grows like bu**ery - the grass blades are thick and lush (just how the cows like 'em - ooo arh) and if I try to mulch here it just doesn't work and ends up on the kids shoes and ultimately all over the gites.

So it's collect for me - with a super rear basket on my Wolf mower that has a hydraulic lift so that I can empty onto a concrete base behind my barn - the OH comes with his tractor about once a month and takes it away to his muck heap.
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Lesblancs
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Location: Morbihan, Bretagne

Post by Lesblancs »

Oh to be a proper farmer :cry:
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CarolineH
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Location: Nr Dinan, Brittany, France

Post by CarolineH »

You wouldn't want all the grief that goes with it - the tractor in question has done 50000 hours in 4 years and needs replacing before it costs too much to maintain - the price has gone from 34K€ four years ago to 54K€ now :shock:
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wallypott
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Post by wallypott »

If I leave the grass on the dogs & kids track it through the house. I have had a sort of giant pit dug where I can reverse the tractor mower up to it and dump it in. It never gets full but does require sort of pushing back.

If you use grass cuttings as compost you need to add a lot of something absorbent (cardboard or newspaper - probably full of chemicals) to it. Personally I can't be bothered as it just meant we finished up with more weeds in the veg beds. We are organic by default as I am too lazy to put on any chemicals etc.
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Jimbo
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Location: Charente Maritime

Post by Jimbo »

Both. If it's dry and the grass is short, I let it lie where it falls. But, if it's wet and the grass is longer (two usually go together), I use a grass box because (as wally says) it gets carried into the gites and makes a hell of a mess. I take the cuttings on the tractor to a distant spoil heap. I used to make compost heaps with cuttings and other material but the wild boar always dug them out and made a another hell of a mess, so I gave up being 'green'.

Managing the grass on our 16 acres is a BIG job, especially in the Spring.

Jim
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CarolineH
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Location: Nr Dinan, Brittany, France

Post by CarolineH »

Jimbo wrote:
Managing the grass on our 16 acres is a BIG job, especially in the Spring.

Jim
Wow! I can imagine, I thought I had a lot with 4 acres! It's the first cut that I don't relish - because of the mild winter, I've already cut once on my "posh-ish" lawns, but the play field is going to be a nightmare when I get onto it :cry:
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French Cricket
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Location: French Pyrénées
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Post by French Cricket »

Mulch every time here. With the best will in the world no-one would apply the words 'manicured' or 'lawns' to our grounds - we're in the middle of woodland and our gardens are just a woodland clearing, really. Too rocky and hilly for a tractor mower so it's a walk-behind propelled machine with a good mulching system - the grassy bits only amount to half a hectare though so it's only 3-4 hours, though taking all the cuttings somewhere else would be a nightmare. Odd bits, where the grass is particularly fat and lush, occasionally have to be raked up though :(
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