new compost

[lindawills]

My son-in-law works for a landscape company and has brought several bags of cut grasses. The black plastic bags were left in the sun and a couple of them had holes in them and the rain got in. Now those bags have a very bad smell and the grass is in slimmy clumps. Is this grass still good to use and are there sprays that would harm the garden on this type of grass cuttings like with the coastal b hay?

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

The grass is perfect for composting. What other use might you have had for them?

Mix them with old tree leaves and you'll be hot composting in no time.

[CaptainCompostAL]

I'll hot compost any plant waste I can get my hands on free!
All grass clippings are totally safe for HOT compost piles.
Even if the grass was sprayed with herbicides from golf courses. Mostly all grass herbicides used today by homeowners is biodegradable. The only problem is, most casual, passive composters, don't get their piles hot enough, long enough, to stimulate the high thermal bacteria, and release the extreme internal heating, to literally cook out the herbicides, pathogens, etc.

Without good aerobic composting, some of these herbicides take several years to break down into safe compounds for the soil and plants. Via aerobic hot composting, this process is accelerated to mere weeks!

If you have any questions about herbicidal chemicals used on plant wastes, just try to get your compost piles hotter, and keep them moist and constantly aerated. Use lots of nitrogen/microbial composting activators like dry molasses powder, urea (urine), and even old compost teas. They all help speed up the decomposition.

[dustoff79]

Ok, You talk about "hot" compost piles, How do you get it "hot"? I live in San Antonio my pile is about 10x5 and I use grass clippings, oak leaves (run through a lawn mower) and it kinda sits there. I turn it about once a month and water it once a week but it feels only warm. What am I doing wrong?

[CaptainCompostAL]

Add more high nitrogen materials. Grass clippings alone may not get temps above 140 degrees F, to get hot piles.

The main reason why my piles are always hot is because I use about 75% horse manure/sawdust shavings in all my piles. Plus I keep it moisterized with rainwater or old compost teas loaded with lots of extra microbes for faster decomposition.

There are plenty of other high nitrogen materials besides animal manures if you can get it. Coffee grounds and dry molasses powder works too.