If you have a yard, you know that cleaning it involves pruning shrubs, cutting grass, and pulling the weeds out. These activities generate yard waste. In straightforward terms, yard waste refers to any organic or vegetative material generated from regular garden or garden maintenance or natural plant attrition.
It includes piles of fallen leaves, plant stems, fallen branches or sticks, grass clippings, weeds, and twigs. When cleaning the yard, hiring removal services is an option that’s definitely worth a look to help dispose of waste. However, it’s illegal to dump yard waste in landfills in some locations.
Like food scraps, yard waste is organic waste that shouldn’t get dumped in incinerators or landfills. When placed in landfills, this type of waste doesn’t decompose well and releases methane into the environment.
But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t clean your yard. If you want to dispose of yard waste efficiently, here are four ways you can do so:
Let Grass Clippings Stay On The Lawn
Another efficient way to dispose of yard waste is leaving grass clippings on your lawn. Instead of spending your time and energy gathering all the grass clippings from the lawn after a day of moving it, let them stay on there to decompose and protect the soil.
Decomposed grass clippings are invaluable for adding nutrients to the earth. If your yard has long grass and the clippings form big clumps after mowing, consider mowing them a second time.
It will break them down and evenly spread them on the surface of the lawn. When left there, grass clippings make your grass healthier. It also reduces gas emissions that would result from transporting them to dumpsites.
Make Compost From Yard Waste
One efficient way to dispose of yard waste is to turn it into compost. Most people avoid this method because some of the trash, like thick stems and branches, may take a long time to break down into compost.
However, composting yard waste is still possible if you separate fast composting materials like the leaves, grass clippings, and sticks from slow composting materials. A great way to decompose bulky waste is to set aside a space for low and slow materials where you place it and leave it for at least a year or more.
Once the waste has decomposed completely, mix it with your yard or garden soil to enrich it. Compost is a form of organic fertilizer, making it suitable for your crops.
Use Yard Waste To Make Mulch
One way of disposing of yard waste is by converting it into mulch. You can do this easily by enlisting a tree removal service or using a wood chipper to chip the debris into mulch. Turning yard waste into mulch regularly makes it easier to manage, ensuring that it does not accumulate to a point where you can’t mulch it without enlisting a professional chipping service.
Mulch enriches the soil by covering bare sections and improving the appearance of your garden bed. Bare soil is more prone to erosion than covered soil. You can repurpose fallen tree branches to cover open spaces and garden beds to prevent erosion.
Mulch is expensive to buy, so using your waste to create mulch can save you a lot of cash in landscaping costs. But if you don’t own a wood chipper and would like to turn your yard waste into mulch yourself, consider borrowing one from your neighbor.
Use Branches To Create Raised Beds Or Raising PlantsÂ
You can dispose of yard waste efficiently by using tree branches and other bulky waste materials to either create raised beds in your garden or raise crawling plants like squash, pumpkins, and melons off the ground to keep them from mounding.
You can fill the bottom part with yard waste when making garden beds, then top them off with compost and soil. As time passes, the waste, including brush and branches, decomposes, enriching your soil with nutrients that nourish your crops.
Using bulky yard waste to make garden beds or raise crops in your garden saves you cash as it reduces the amount of soil and fertilizer needed to enrich your garden.
Final Thoughts
Disposing of yard waste can be stressful, mainly if the waste is bulky and requires you to hire removal services. But unlike other forms of debris that get dumped in landfills, you can repurpose yard waste to benefit your lawn and garden due to its organic nature. Next time you clean your yard, apply the four tips discussed above and turn it into something useful for your lawn or garden.