If you have a garden with grass or lawn, you know that the problem, besides cutting the grass, is what to do with it once it is cut. The best option is to compost that grass in a composter. Some people spread it over areas of the garden where there is no grass and let it decompose, but if there is a large amount, there may not be enough space to dispose of it all. What should not be done (and should be prohibited) is to put that grass in plastic bags and throw it in the trash. It’s not just individuals who do this, but also some landscaping companies that, for convenience and if the amount cut on the property where they are working is not much, put the grass in bags and leave it in the nearest container. I don’t know what kind of waste management these landscaping companies have, but it’s a shame to see bags full of grass thrown away when it can be perfectly used for composting.
To make compost, all you need is a composter and a bit of technique to know how to mature the compost (nothing out of this world). Two basic things are necessary: aeration and moisture. There are composters on the market of various sizes, from composters for small gardens to composters for large volumes of compostable material, such as those handled by landscaping companies, which should consider the option of setting up composters to add value to a waste that they are paid to remove. But if we don’t want to buy a plastic composter, we can also take advantage of making one of those pallet projects that we love so much, and accumulate pallets until we have enough to make a homemade composter.
A composter in a corner of the garden does not bother at all and provides us with a place to throw the grass and other garden and kitchen waste, with the advantage that after a few months, it will give us back high-quality compost that surprises us with the results when we use it on our lawn, plants, or vegetable garden. Later in this post, I will try to explain what can and cannot be put into the homemade composter and how to make compost. For now, let’s start with the first video on how to make one with pallets. Here you will see how I use pallets that I disassembled by hitting with a mallet, but you might also be interested in seeing how to disassemble them by cutting the pallet nails with a reciprocating saw.