[jambop]

I have made a lot of new raised beds and was thinking that I might use clippings from my grass to mulch between rows of crops. Has anybody done this and found that they have had problems with grass seeding from the clippings? I don't want to end up with more problems with grass growing in the beds than benefit from using the clippings. I had thought about covering unused beds over the winter to blind out weeds anyway but advice for someone who has tried it is always useful.

[Growster...]

We always used grass mowings in between the rows of spuds, Jambop.

Great for retaining moisture, and as they rot down, they keep weeds down too!

Never saw a problem with seed - during that year anyway!

[jambop]

We always used grass mowings in between the rows of spuds, Jambop.

Great for retaining moisture, and as they rot down, they keep weeds down too!

Never saw a problem with seed - during that year anyway!

Well that should be good enough for me too growster. When it gets hot in the summer here the ground dries out very quickly so I will be using the grass clippings between beans , onions and probably around my tomatoes too. I am growing my tomatoes in open ground but I intend to making it into some raised beds after they come out so I would think the grass clippings should get incorporated into the soil over the winter months.

[snowdrops]

Do you have any slug problems? If so the slugs will love the grass mulch!

[Yorkie]

Avoid doing so if the grass already has seed heads, of course 

[jambop]

Avoid doing so if the grass already has seed heads, of course 

Yes Yorkie this is the problem I foresaw. The grass has had its first few cuts and that is when there are generally a lot of seed heads that you can quite clearly see. I am hoping that subsequent cuts have far fewer ... but will there ever actually be none?? I doubt it but will still give it a go as at the end of the season I plan to cover some of the beds to blank out weed growth, if that can actually be done? The plan is to really get the fertility of the new beds up to snuff and one other thing I had in mind was to cover some of the beds with a good topping of manure in the autumn with the hopes that over the winter it will become a nice growing medium ready to go, although I have heard that with manure you very often need to add some lime to sweeten the mix? I was thinking about using some sieved wood ash from my stove might be a good alternative?

[Yorkie]

The general advice is not to add lime at the same time as manure, I think.

[maddave]

Sorry to jump on this, but what if there are nettles growing in the grass, or couch grass?  Would the chopped up debris just start growing again in the bed?

[jambop]

The general advice is not to add lime at the same time as manure, I think.

I heard that too. I was still thinking I might add some before planting anything into beds that had been manured though. The problem for me is that I have a lot of beds and I can easily get manure free whereas I have to pay for compost

[Yorkie]

Oh yes, it's absolutely fine to add lime at planting time - just have that delay since manuring.