Compost tea is popular among organic gardeners to feed their plants. You can make a similar liquid plant food by steeping grass clippings in water for 3-4 days and then straining out the liquid. The resulting “tea” will contain nutrients, amino acids and proteins that are a natural food for your plants.

After bagging the clippings while mowing, you can spread them around the base of trees and shrubs or on the potting soil surface in container plants. Acting as a mulch, the grass clippings will help to prevent weeds while increasing soil moisture retention.

For your compost pile to work efficiently, it needs a mix of “brown” (high carbon) and “green” (high nitrogen) materials. Adding grass clippings to the pile will add nitrogen that’s important for production of protein — a food source for the microbes doing the work. Sounds complicated, right? Home Composting Made Easy helps to lay it all out in an easy-to-understand way.