Grass to Gardens and Electric Lawn Mowers by joycet

Great topic! Here's a suggestion to use lawn as a crop to make compost to feed veg. Our mower uses under 400mL petrol in an hour. It's 4-stroke so minimal VOCs (that come from 2-stroke mixing oil). The clippings are laid out 15cm deep for a day to part dry then composted in a builder's bulk bag (around 1m3). The drying changes the C/N ratio so it composts with aerobic rather than the usual anaerobic (slimy methane-making) bacteria. It needs turning/mixing 2 or 3 times but the composting is fast and hot (so grass seeds are cooked). It's usable as a rich mulch after 3 weeks and as compost to dig into soil after 4-5 weeks. This makes around 100L compost each time, increasing soil carbon far more than the mass of fuel burnt to make it. This time of year the grass and the potato plants are both growing so the grass compost is being produced fast enough to earth up the potatoes as they grow. The potatoes grow in more bulk bags. I use half compost and half soil and it ends up around 60cm high at the time of harvest with big crops. Photos at http://www.wiser.org/user/blindspotter/section/main