Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!ames!elroy!usc!polyslo!vlsi3b15!lehi3b15!lafcol!logant
From: logant@lafcol.UUCP (Tracy Logan)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Is Mowing your Lawn bad for the Environment?
Summary: puzzled by grass-clipping/Nitrogen problem
Keywords: lawns fertility
Message-ID: <1277@lafcol.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jun 89 22:46:07 GMT
References: <24792@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <20388@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <2876@cuuxb.ATT.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Academic Computing Services, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042
Lines: 19

The worries about clippings and nitrogen puzzle me.  We put the clippings from
a lawn (we didn't feed it, it fed us, dandelions)
onto a fairly large vegetable garden.  Seems like they kept down weeds,
disappeared pretty fast.  

I find it hard to believe those clippings REDUCED the fertility of
the garden, but I only ate from it, never tested its soil.  

If they take nitrogen from the soil to
decompose, it would seem the N would then be available.  It doesn't go off as
NOx, does it, nor as NH4 in those aerobic conditions?  

My logic was: I disrupted a steady-state situation by eating the
chinese-cabbage, so I put the clippings there to replace it.  Is that
fundamentally false?  

Tracy Logan                    uucp    : rutgers!lehi3b15!lafcol!logant 
Academic Computing Services    Bitnet  : LOGANT@LAFAYETT
Lafayette College              Internet: logant%lafayett.bitnet@CunyVM.CUNY.EDU