As leaves litter the ground all too many homeowners rake, bag and drag bags of leaves to the curb for disposal. This fall, rather than throwing leaves away utilize them in your vegetable garden and landscape. Recycle your leaves into mulch and compost.
Mulching is easy. Rake or blow leaves directly into flower beds. A 3- to 5-inch layer of leaves will quickly settle forming a 2-inch layer. You will want to distribute the leaves evenly throughout the bed to protect plant roots from winter cold and to conserve soil moisture. A leaf mulch also acts as a natural herbicide. The leaves prevent sunlight from reaching the soil which is necessary for weed seed germination -- so fewer weeds to bother with.
I find that larger leaves will blow with the wind for the first two weeks. You can prevent this from happening by shredding leaves before using as a mulch. This can be accomplished by using a lawn mower with a bag, a vacuum attachment on a leaf blower, or a leaf and branch shredder.
Once you learn to appreciate the benefits of leaves, you might find yourself scouring the neighborhood to collect bags of leaves that others have discarded. And, leaves incorporated into the fall vegetable garden will become rich, dark humus by next spring.
If you prefer the look of pine needles or bark and wood mulches rather than freshly raked leaves, then compost your leaves for use later as a soil additive or top dressing. Composting is a process that transforms whole leaves into a rich garden supplement that is dark and crumbly with an earthy smell. Addition of compost to soil provides several advantages. Compost will loosen clayey soils making them easier to work and plant. It retains fertilizer nutrients for a longer time than soil alone so plants grow better. And compost helps with water retention and internal drainage.
Over the years many products have been marketed to help homeowners compost tree leaves, ground tree stumps, shredded paper, vegetable and fruit peelings, egg shells, and coffee grounds. A variety of compost bins have been introduced to make composting easy and efficient. Compost additives claim to make better compost and reduce the time from raw organic product to a garden useable product. But still the simplest of all composting methods is the leaf pile.
That’s right, a leaf pile, the kind kids love to jump in. It costs nothing and can be as large or as small as you like. Throw a few shovels of soil and some fertilizer in with the leaves to speed up the decomposition process and by next spring you’ll have some great compost. Reduce the time it takes by turning the pile and don’t be alarmed if you see ‘smoke’ rising from the warm compost. This is natural and is caused by microbial activity breaking down the organic matter.
When is the compost ready? When turning it no longer causes the pile to heat up and the center of the pile is cool. If you want a more refined compost pile then plenty of compost bin styles and sizes are on the market. There is a display of compost bins at the LSU AgCenter Burden Center at 4560 Essen Lane highlighting differences between bin styles. The property is open year round and the compost display is located at the back of the All American Display Garden on your right.
Some features to look for in purchasing or building a compost bin include size, ease of turning the compost, cost and aesthetics. If you only want to compost tree leaves during the cool months, then consider compost styles that permit easy storage. One of the best I’ve seen is made by Fiskars. Its collapsible spring-loaded design makes set-up very easy and when not in use it takes very little storage room.
There are bin styles that let you roll around on the ground, others have you compost in stages with multiple sections and one is elevated to allow the contents to be emptied in a wheelbarrow.
Though composting makes sense for anyone who gardens or has a landscape, it serves a bigger purpose. Landfills are filling up and closing and yard waste and food scraps make up 20 to 30 percent of garbage. This unnecessary addition to our waste stream is costly and wasteful.
