Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Happy Earth Day!

Hopefully today Tad will mow the lawn for the first time this season. I just wanted to pass on a tip that we started doing 2 years ago that I thought I’d never do.

We live on .4 acre, and for the first 7 years we always bagged our grass after we mowed it. Well one day a neighbor who has a gorgeous lawn told us they never bag their grass, it’s too much waste. I just always assumed if you didn’t you’d have piles of grass (think school lawns). We’d easily fill up 1 – 1½ of our black garbage cans with what we’d mow each week and we’d have to limit it to once a week due to not enough garbage space. Most lawnmowers will mulch your grass after you mow them so you can’t even tell the difference (unless extra debris, long or wet grass). So I’m just throwing the suggestion out there if you’ve never tried just mulching your grass instead of bagging it. In case you aren’t convinced here are some more advantages to mulching vs. bagging:



  • Saves gas. We get our lawn done in one tank if we don’t bag. It takes more than one tank if we bag the grass. Also you save gas by not having the garbage man haul it to the dump.

  • Grass clippings provide additional nutrients to your lawn when they are mulched.

  • You could use your grass clippings in your compost.

  • Saves time - Less work for your husband and that makes mine happy and complain less.

I’m hoping to throw out some greener suggestions every once and awhile. Don’t worry they’ve been small changes we’ve made at our house but some of the changes have made things a lot easier than the way we were doing them and it’s just another bonus that they are better for the environment too.
Image courtesy of Grievous Bodily Charm

2 comments:

Teisha said...

We are trying to be a little greener and more efficient around here too. Love that idea, that is how they do it around here too. Can't wait to hear more ideas.

Erin said...

We do that too mostly because it's less work. Ha ha! :)