Sawdust and Grass Clippings

[JaneG]

Sawdust and grass clippings . . . . These are two things I always seem to have too much of!!!

Sawdust - DH is a woodworker with a high-tech dust collection system attached to all his tools, so I get at least a barrel of sawdust each month. It just gets dumped out back in a big pile and then I have to deal with it. It's a mixture of wood types . . . walnut, maple, mahogany, pine, and some exotics.

Grass Clippings - since getting a lawn sweep, he loves to sweep the lawn after mowing! So almost every time he mows our large lawn, I end up with a huge pile of grass clippings to deal with. We have the lawn treated 4 or 5 times a year, so there are often chemicals on the grass.

What can I do with these? Are they both "browns"? Or are they a brown and a green that I could mix?

I know decomposing wood steals nitrogen from the soil, how long must I let the sawdust piles sit before I can use them on the garden? Or can I spread a thin layer immediately.

Can I use the grass clippings as a mulch to suppress weeds in the vegetable garden?

What would you do with an endless supply of sawdust and grass clippings??

[lazygardner]

Sawdust brown and Fresh Grass Clippings green. ONce the grass is dried out in the sun it is a brown, but as a green it does great things for heating up compost.

[eastwood2007]

I agree with lazygardener.

The only thing would be maybe to have DH dump the grass clippings right after weed treatment in a different pile and let it set awhile. You can use fresh grass clippings as mulch, too, but not the ones with weed killer on them. Walnut sawdust is not good for some plants, but way okay for hostas if it is composted a little...definitely not for veggie gardens as it will kill tomatoes in a heartbeat!