Dry Your Grass Clippings!
The sign had to come down; five to eight bags of clippings per week was proving to be too much for me to handle.
I thought I could just dump the bags and spread the clippings as mulch, letting nature take its course. However, I’ve learned that you have to let the clippings dry before you can use them as mulch. Quite quickly I’ve developed a wet, matted mold problem. So this afternoon I forked the clippings across my yard to let the sun dry them. When I get a moment this week I’ll run the mower over them, mulching them into tiny pieces that will dry up even faster. Without proper air flow, the bacteria can’t do their work to compost the clippings. An frankly, wet, moldy clippings stink.
There’s still lots and lots of clippings that need drying; I’ve really got my work cut out for me. Eventually I’ll get this down to a science. In a year or two I’ll know the exact volume I need to mulch everything, and I’ll get it dried quickly. Until then, live and learn.
The Suburban Farm 
Greetings! I have been using fresh grass clippings on my vegetable garden for almost seven years now and I have never had a problem. I don’t mind a little stink, but I have never really noticed any. I take the clippings right out of the bagger on the mower and put them around my plants. Right up to the stem and about six inches or more deep. They turn brown and settle quickly, but they enrich the soil and keep the weeds out. I don’t know what I would do without them. Every year, when someone finds out that I use fresh grass clippings for mulch, they get a horrified look and tell me how that is bad. It has worked for me, so I continue. I just mulched forty tomato plants with six inches of grass clippings and it’s beautiful!
Ginny, I don’t know what I would do without grass clipping either. I’m sure I get more than a few funny looks from the neighbors when I put the sign up. If you mulch six inches deep without any problem, then I shouldn’t be so worried. There’s a light smell, but maybe I’m spending too much time listening to outsiders. Thanks for the insight.
Forty tomato plants: wow!