You Bet Your Garden

Is it ever right to use your grass clippings as a garden mulch?? On the latest You Bet Your Garden, we’ll bend–but not break–the rules as Mike McGrath looks at the pros and cons of collecting those clips. Plus, your fabulous phone calls!

My son has been trying to make compost out of three large piles of grass contained by plastic fencing. With all the rain we’ve had, the piles have become wet, compacted, dense and very heavy. What can be done to make these piles more effective at breaking down? They have been turned, but we recently added a lot of grass—and that plus the rain has made things a compacted mess. I examined one pile today and it’s actually like “green manure”; you know, all soft and squishy. That should be really great for the garden…no?
—Elizabeth in North Plainfield, New Jersey

How Elizabeth can fix her compost »