Don't Burn Those Leaves!
Today is the first day of Autumn, so leaves will be turning and then falling, which means we'll all be digging out the rakes!
Before you touch a match to that pile of leaves you've just raked up, or finding a large trash bag to put them in for the garbage collectors, stop and reconsider. It's like burning and throwing away dollar bills, because with proper handling those leaves can become valuable fertilizer for your shrubs, flowers and vegetables.
LEAVES ARE MAIN INGREDIENT OF A COMPOST PILE
Leaves are one of the main ingredients of a compost pile, kept by many gardeners to furnish soil enriching humus material for their plants. The collecting of material for a compost pile is a year-round process, but autumn, with its abundance of falling leaves and garden refuse, is an excellent time to start the accumulation.
There are all kinds of compost piles. Some gardeners make them in pits with brick or concrete sides; some erect a board frame with three sides; some use barrels; but the majority simply make a rectangular pile on top of the ground in a secluded and shaded part of the yard.
Assuming you'd like to do it the easy way named last, here are the fundamentals:
1. Make the pile 4 to 6 feet wide, and as long as you have material for.
2. What to put on the pile: grass clippings, weeds, leaves, straw, kitchen garbage (except fats and meats), peat, fine wood ashes. What not to put on it: plant tops that have been diseased; sticks or other brush with stiff canes or woody parts that would prevent the pile from packing down.
3. Spread out and trample a layer of the leafy material 4 inches deep; add a thin layer of soil; add another layer of leaves, trampled; more soil, and so on, ending with soil on top and the pile dished in slightly so it will catch the rain.
4. If you have commercial fertilizer on hand, sprinkle some over each layer as you build the pile, to hasten decaying action and give the pile greater plant food value. Special preparations are on the market for adding to compost to make it decompose faster. Several are nitrogen compounds, and one type actually contains bacteria which go to work on the pile and change it into leaf mold in a matter of months. When you want compost quickly, try one of those.
5. Unless rain does the job, wet the pile down about once a week, until freezing weather stops you if you live in the north. If you live in the south, you can continue to add to the pile, turn it over and water it down again.
In about a year's time - maybe more, maybe less, depending on how you've treated the pile - you can begin to draw from it rich leaf humus for fertilizing and mulching your flowers and shrubs. This humus mixed with garden soil performs many services essential to growing vegetable plants and flowers - it conserves moisture, opens up the soil to more air, makes cold soil warmer and hot soil cooler, and offers ideal conditions for the billions of soil bacteria on which plants depend for life.
Don't wait - pick out a good area for your compost pile and get started on it. You'll be glad you did!
Before you touch a match to that pile of leaves you've just raked up, or finding a large trash bag to put them in for the garbage collectors, stop and reconsider. It's like burning and throwing away dollar bills, because with proper handling those leaves can become valuable fertilizer for your shrubs, flowers and vegetables.
LEAVES ARE MAIN INGREDIENT OF A COMPOST PILE
Leaves are one of the main ingredients of a compost pile, kept by many gardeners to furnish soil enriching humus material for their plants. The collecting of material for a compost pile is a year-round process, but autumn, with its abundance of falling leaves and garden refuse, is an excellent time to start the accumulation.
There are all kinds of compost piles. Some gardeners make them in pits with brick or concrete sides; some erect a board frame with three sides; some use barrels; but the majority simply make a rectangular pile on top of the ground in a secluded and shaded part of the yard.
Assuming you'd like to do it the easy way named last, here are the fundamentals:
1. Make the pile 4 to 6 feet wide, and as long as you have material for.
2. What to put on the pile: grass clippings, weeds, leaves, straw, kitchen garbage (except fats and meats), peat, fine wood ashes. What not to put on it: plant tops that have been diseased; sticks or other brush with stiff canes or woody parts that would prevent the pile from packing down.
3. Spread out and trample a layer of the leafy material 4 inches deep; add a thin layer of soil; add another layer of leaves, trampled; more soil, and so on, ending with soil on top and the pile dished in slightly so it will catch the rain.
4. If you have commercial fertilizer on hand, sprinkle some over each layer as you build the pile, to hasten decaying action and give the pile greater plant food value. Special preparations are on the market for adding to compost to make it decompose faster. Several are nitrogen compounds, and one type actually contains bacteria which go to work on the pile and change it into leaf mold in a matter of months. When you want compost quickly, try one of those.
5. Unless rain does the job, wet the pile down about once a week, until freezing weather stops you if you live in the north. If you live in the south, you can continue to add to the pile, turn it over and water it down again.
In about a year's time - maybe more, maybe less, depending on how you've treated the pile - you can begin to draw from it rich leaf humus for fertilizing and mulching your flowers and shrubs. This humus mixed with garden soil performs many services essential to growing vegetable plants and flowers - it conserves moisture, opens up the soil to more air, makes cold soil warmer and hot soil cooler, and offers ideal conditions for the billions of soil bacteria on which plants depend for life.
Don't wait - pick out a good area for your compost pile and get started on it. You'll be glad you did!
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