Rudi (hi Rudi) suggests leaving the grass clippings as mulch, which is a great idea. I'd add that if you want to do that & avoid a thatch buildup (which will leave you either with bare spots or a carpet of moss, depending on your climate & amt of shade), cut the lawn on a regular basis--don't let the grass grow to 8" and then use your mulching mower, in other words, like my husband did. He also kept assuring me that he could just run that mulching mower over a carpet of enormous wet oak leaves and the lawn would come back next year just fine. WRONG. Now, I love him
but he really is no gardener
and I now have a lawn that is mostly moss and weeds
, so I'm fighting back patch by patch.
I have never had a problem with birds eating the seeds--but then I always throw out way more seed than recommended, so maybe there's enough for them AND for the lawn.
The biggest challenge in seeding a lawn, as anyone knows who's ever planted grass seed, is keeping the seed "moist" until the baby grass gets established, or else your baby seedlings will dry and burn up and you end up with the same bare patch.
Don't you know anyone who has rushed home from work at lunchtime to water that danged precious grass? I do!
That's where some kind of mulch/cover comes in, to shade your bed from ol' evil sun
and keep the soil from drying out.
SUGGESTION, rather than use decomposing grass clippings (sorry Rudi), which I would think would burn your seedlings
cover your newly seeded places with a
thin (loose, so some light can get through) cover of straw or spoiled hay. Now, I come from a long line of cheapskate ("frugal") Yankees so I resist buying straw for this purpose. But I have unlimited access to free spoiled hay at the barn where I board my horse--it's not grossly spoiled, but once a bale starts to turn hot or get a little bit of mold, you CANNOT feed it to horses
. (Moldy feed can kill a horse; fortunately most horses won't eat bad hay.) You can probably also get spoiled hay in your area by just asking anyone who has horses, unless they too use it in the garden as mulch. Landscapers often use burlap, but I am way too cheap... I mean frugal... to spend money on burlap for this purpose.
Ah, I do love ruminating on garden issues
Jocelyn, with heart & soul in the soil