Grass clippings on truck

[brianc636]

I get angry when I’m driving and people using blowers or cutting grass “aim” it into the street at passing cars. The rocks and dust churned up hit and cover my clean car. Why can’t people just aim back into the yard and save me from rewashing my car and save a possible broken window?

I’m guilty of this but when I’m mowing the right away (I live in the country and mow it with my other 12 acres) but keep an eye on traffic and turn the deck off and rotate the mower away from cars. I never mow when cars are passing. That’s just wrong.

I just have a few passes where it’s tough to not blow it into the ditch.

[davidgreams]

I also moved from a city that used to have much more frequent yard waste collection (every two weeks in the spring, summer, and fall). But I make do here.

I mulch most of my grass clippings with the lawnmower and leave them on the ground. Occasionally, I'll collect the grass clippings in the mower bag and dump them in my compost bin to give it a boost of nitrogen.

With the leaves, I rake them up and stockpile them in the back of the yard. Come spring, I start adding them to the compost bin to help balance out all that grass I put in earlier.

Speaking of the compost bin, you can make your own, informal one, but I've bought two Earth Machines from Public Works for $50 at Omohundro Convenience Center, which is less than half the price that Home Depot charges for the same compost bin. I mostly use it for kitchen scraps, with only some of my yard waste going in.

With the rest of it, I stockpile it in an out-of-the-way area of my quarter-acre lot, then I take it all to the curb a few days before they come to pick it up (you can sign up to get an email reminder from Public Works a week before they come). Even with a bunch of trees and a large garden, I still find I don't have too much yard waste to make this too much of a burden.