Grass Clippings

Carroll County has finally found a taker for the plastic-stippled grass clippings and metal-mingled wood chips that the government has had trouble giving away.But the county commissioners will have to spend an estimated $28,000 a year to remove the plastic from the yard waste before a Randallstown lumber corporation takes it away.County Comptroller Eugene C. Curfman estimated that 2,000 tons of grass clippings and wood chips have piled up at the county landfill in Reese since the county banned burial of yard waste in May.That's 29 pounds of free mulch for each Carroll resident, but the county has been able to give it away.

Is there such thing as leaf-cycling? I grass-cycle. Do leaves add fertilizer to lawns like grass clippings do? How deep can I make the shredded leaves? Green organic materials are high in nitrogen. Grass-cycling can add as much as half of your lawn's yearly nitrogen fertilizer. Brown organic materials, such as leaves, improve soil structure and add some nitrogen, though not as much as is added by the same weight of grass clippings. By all means, leaf-cycle by mowing your fallen leaves and grass.

Baltimore County is asking residents to let the grass grow under their feet.For the second year, the county is urging those in neighborhoods who bag their grass clippings to cut the grass high and leave the cuttings on their lawns to reduce yard-waste collection."

My wife nearly purchased a stevia plant ( Stevia rebaudiana ). Also known as "sweetleaf" and "sugarleaf," it's the same plant from which natural sweeteners such as OnlySweet, PureVia and Truvia are made. She didn't get the plant, though, because she wasn't certain that I knew how to grow it. Used for centuries to sweeten foods and medicines, this member of the sunflower family is a frost-tender herb native to tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas. It was first discovered growing wild in Paraguay during 1903.

Already preoccupied with what we eat, Americans are increasingly being reminded of the things we throw away. The latest waste product to go on the hit list is grass.It appears that the quest for the supremely manicured lawn is responsible for 20 percent of all that is dumped in the nation's landfills, according to the Texas-based Professional Lawn Care Association. The association has been campaigning to get people to recycle their grass clippings. They have even coined the word grasscycling to capture the imagination of the pedestrian environmentalist.

Watermelon rinds, coffee grounds, grass clippings and leaves are decomposing in compost heaps, hoops, bins and barrels in Quiet Waters Park's new backyard composting demonstration project."

Carroll residents wouldn't be allowed to put their grass clippings and leaves into landfill-bound garbage under a proposed ordinance change supported by a majority of the county commissioners.But the commissioners say they will rely on voluntary compliance rather than try to enforce the requirement that yard waste be placed in the mulching area at the northern landfill in Reese and kept out of the cells where refuse is buried.The county uses the mulched material in gardening and offers it free to anyone interested.

The simmering feud between a pair of Columbia neighbors -- which has resulted in 13 criminal cases and more than 100 calls to police -- reached a milestone yesterday: a jail sentence. One of the participants received a sentence of two days in the Howard County Detention Center for spitting at the other in a disagreement over grass clippings. Noting the judicial system's exhaustion at the "back and forth of who is going to win today" that has spanned eight years, Howard County District Court Judge Neil E. Axel imposed the jail sentence on Timothy Cerny, 47, of the 6100 block of Swift Current Way in Columbia's River Hill village.

Vandals have done what the state could not: stop the stench at the regional compost plant on the Howard-Anne Arundel county line. But the smell generated by decaying leaves and grass clippings is likely to return with a vengeance sometime next week.Operations at the tri-county facility in Dorsey halted June 11 after two key pieces of equipment were damaged by rock salt and sand poured into engine oil and hydraulic fluid.The vandalism caused more than $40,000 in damage to machinery that empties yard-waste bags and turns rows of rotting leaves and grass.

Baltimore County officials are asking homeowners in Towson and Timonium to do the unthinkable: Mow their grass when it is several inches high and stop bagging.For residents who take great pride in keeping their lawns emerald green and manicured, the request -- issued yesterday in the name of the economy and environment -- ranks as horticultural heresy."It won't have that fresh lawn look. It will look dried," worried Jean McGuire, 76, of Country Lane in Timonium who was watching Bill Baker cut her immaculate, quarter-acre parcel yesterday.

The simmering feud between a pair of Columbia neighbors -- which has resulted in 13 criminal cases and more than 100 calls to police -- reached a milestone yesterday: a jail sentence. One of the participants received a sentence of two days in the Howard County Detention Center for spitting at the other in a disagreement over grass clippings. Noting the judicial system's exhaustion at the "back and forth of who is going to win today" that has spanned eight years, Howard County District Court Judge Neil E. Axel imposed the jail sentence on Timothy Cerny, 47, of the 6100 block of Swift Current Way in Columbia's River Hill village.

Wintertime is learning time, especially for gardeners who camp indoors with books, catalogs, computers and dreams. It's the perfect chance to evaluate how you garden, thinking about: Did you use lots of herbicides or insecticides last year, always running for the chemicals instead of waiting to see if a plant could thrive despite the intrusion of a bug or blemish on a leaf? Did you saturate your cool-season lawn with fertilizer in spring instead of doing it at the recommended timeframe in fall?

"LIFE BEGINS at 40," or that's what 62-year old Lew Shell would have us believe. No, the Severn resident isn't referring to the human condition, but to a key element of one of his favorite topics - composting, or as he and his colleagues in the Maryland Master Gardener program prefer to think of it, the art of transforming organic material into a natural soil conditioner. The "life" that Shell, a master gardener and horticulture consultant at the Maryland Cooperative Extension Home and Garden Information Center in Clarksville, refers to is the process of decaying that occurs only when the air temperature is above 40 degrees, usually from April to November.

WIMBLEDON, England -- Give this man red clay and hot sun. Let him slide on a court for hours, bending shots while driving his opponents into the dust.But keep Gustavo Kuerten away from grass and rain.Until this year, that used to be the book on Kuerten. But not anymore. The Brazilian clay-court specialist has become a grass-court ace, blasting his way into the Wimbledon quarterfinals yesterday by beating Lorenzo Manta of Switzerland, 7-5, 6-4, 5-7, 6-3."I'm a grass-court player," Kuerten declared with a broad smile breaking across his face.

Baltimore County is asking residents to let the grass grow under their feet.For the second year, the county is urging those in neighborhoods who bag their grass clippings to cut the grass high and leave the cuttings on their lawns to reduce yard-waste collection."

To catch some local ne'er-do-wells in the act, Taneytown officials might place a security camera in what has become a prime spot for rule-breakers: the local mulch pile.Instead of curbside service to pick up grass clippings, leaves and small branches, Carroll County and some of its towns have residents drop off yard waste at mulch piles. Every so often, a shredder is brought in to grind the material, and residents get free bags of mulch.The mulch pile operated without much trouble for 10 years.

The Carroll County Recycling Office is urging homeowners to turn yard waste -- grass clippings, leaves, brush and other lawn debris -- into compost instead of discarding it as trash.Yard trimmings and other waste may be recycled in several ways. The Recycling Office offers these tips:* Grasscycling: This improves the quality of the lawn by returning important nutrients to the soil. It saves time and money and does not create thatch.To grasscycle, mow high and never cut more than one-third of the grass height at one time.

Is there such thing as leaf-cycling? I grass-cycle. Do leaves add fertilizer to lawns like grass clippings do? How deep can I make the shredded leaves? Green organic materials are high in nitrogen. Grass-cycling can add as much as half of your lawn's yearly nitrogen fertilizer. Brown organic materials, such as leaves, improve soil structure and add some nitrogen, though not as much as is added by the same weight of grass clippings. By all means, leaf-cycle by mowing your fallen leaves and grass.