I use it in the garden for now, I've got a big yard and bag all of the clippings so I've collected a few big piles over the last few years.
So far its just straight grass from years of cutting grass and leaves from fall. Not in a compost bin or covered just left out in the air.
Should I be adding soil to it and mixing or just let it keep breaking down on its own? Or cover it with a tarp or something?
shit, i'd amend the bejesus out of that pile with fish bone meal, fish meal, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, crab or shrimp meal, oyster flour, some rock dusts...
toss and turn that bitch every week or so, after you assemble it "lasagna" style, meaning layer it grass, then leaves, then sprinkle water, then amendments, repeat.
OR if it's already a pile (sounds like it is) then sprinkle the amendments on top, mix it, repeat, mix, repeat. sprinkling water before mixing each time, preferably NOT on top of the amendments.
then after that, sprinkle some water on top of the finished pile, pretend you are mother nature and it's raining, DONT squirt it all down, the amendments can wash out, you want it all there.
Then tarp it if it's hot and dry out, or leave it open if it's humid or cool out.
By tarp I only mean LOOSELY cover it, that's only to help slow the transpiration of the water and accelerate the thermophilic process of the composting.
After that, months later you can use that compost and I guaran-fuckin-tee you'll NEVER go back..
Talk about a water only recipe... hah... you could teach a blind monkey to grow after that.
Sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn't.
OH and word to the wise...
DO NOT make an amended compost pile like this at the base of a tree.....
I made my compost pile about four feet high at the base of a redwood tree... the tree's roots grew UP into the pile and it was such a painful cunt-whore to rip up those roots to get to my compost... that and the roots literally consumed the compost.. like it was 85% gone....
I fixed that though. Had an old carpet that got some rain damage, so I put that sucker down and then piled the compost on TOP... course i'm almost out now... gonna HOARD the leaves this fall, like a madman..
Those grass clippings are awesome though, a damn good slow release nitrogen source