I’m always confounded when I drive through my neighborhood and see lawn care trucks at homes. The workers are inevitably loading grass clippings or fall leaves onto their trucks, and at the same time applying chemical fertilizers to the lawns.
It’s mind boggling that people are paying to remove safe, effective nutrients from their property and replacing it with petroleum based chemicals. Is this what it means to live in an affluent society?
Fall Leaves Build Healthy Soil
Leaves provide some great benefits for our gardens and are worth taking the time to collect and compost. Added to garden soil, they improve the structure, making heavy soils easier to work.
Leaf compost helps the soil to hold water, reducing periods of stress that accompany summer drought. And they create perfect conditions for the beneficial organisms that live in the soil. It is largely the presence of these microorganisms that make minerals available to the plant. The nutrients are released slowly, unlike inorganic fertilizers, at a rate at which the plants can use for optimum growth.
According to Vincent Cotrone, Penn State Extension Urban Forester,
Pound for pound, the leaves of most trees contain twice as many minerals as manure. For example, the mineral content of a sugar maple leaf is over five percent, while even common pine needles have 2.5 percent of their weight in calcium, magnesium, nitrogen and phosphorus, plus other trace elements.
Collecting Fall Leaves
Leaves are free, readily available in areas where deciduous trees grow, and are easy to compost, or to use as is.
Raking is a dreaded fall chore, but there are easier ways to collect leaves. We run over the leaves that have fallen with our lawn mower, with the bag attached. The leaves are picked up, and chopped in the process, exactly what we need for the garden. And this way, they also contain some grass clippings which provide nitrogen to help the leaves decompose.
If raking is your only option, try to make it a fun, family activity. Many hands make light work.
If you have a small property without leaves of your own, ask neighbors for theirs. In many communities, leaves are raked to the road for collection. This is a potential source of leaves, but keep in mind that road debris and other contaminates may be in these leaves.
“Grass clippings with chemical residues can get mixed in with the leaves and contaminate them”, says William Brinton, Ph.D., director of the Woods End Research Laboratory, in Maine. “Still”, Dr. Brinton explains, “chemical contamination is not a significant concern with leaf mold because its lengthy decomposition time allows for chemicals to break down as well”.
Only you can decide if the value of the leaves outweighs the potential contaminates. We only take leaves from properties where we know that chemical fertilizers and weed killers are not used.
Composting Leaves
Leaves will compost more quickly if they are chopped. If you are not able to collect them with your lawn mower, as we do, then rake them, and run over them with the lawn mower to chop them.
A friend of ours collects his and places them in a tower made of chicken wire. He then uses his weed-wacker to chop them.
Chopped leaves may be added to your compost bin or pile, along with all the other items (like kitchen scraps) that you are adding. Turning your pile will aerate it, and help everything to decompose. Leaves are often dry in the fall, so be sure to add moisture if that is the case.
The leaves may also be left in a pile by themselves to decompose. This is a slow method because of the high carbon content of leaves, and will take about a year for them to decompose if they are chopped, and 2 years if they are not.
Adding grass clippings, keeping the pile moist, but not soaked, and turning the pile will all help to speed the process. Leaf compost that contains only leaves is often referred to as “leaf mold”.
Or Not
It’s not necessary to compost your leaves first, depending on how you will use them.
Chopped leaves make a good mulch and cover for your garden when you are putting it to bed for the winter. They can be used to mulch trees, but please be sure you are mulching properly, since you can do as much harm as good when you mulch improperly.
And un-composted leaves are a fantastic addition when you are building a lasagna garden. It’s best if they are chopped, but you can use them whole if you are careful to use thin layers of them to keep them from matting up.
Using Composted Leaves
Fall leaves may be used throughout the garden, and in landscaping. I’ve mentioned that un-composted leaves may be used as mulch, or in a lasagna garden. When composting leaves, you’ll know that they are ready when they are black and crumbly, and no longer resemble leaves.
Here are some ways to use composted leaves:
- Leaf mold makes a good peat moss substitute. Peat is not a sustainable product. To learn more, see this post.
- To make your own potting mixture for seedlings, combine one part leaf mold with one part well-aged compost or worm castings.
- Adding an inch of composted leaves per year to your soil can fulfill the fertilizer requirements for most vegetables.
- Create a “tea” by mixing leaf mold and water. Strain, and use the tea to water plants.
- Rake a thin layer of leaf mold into your lawn to help keep it healthy.
How about you? Do you view fall leaves as a just another chore, or as a valuable resource to build soil?
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anita says
i have A LOT of walnut leaves- do they need to be processed differently – or not used?
Susan says
Hi Anita. Walnut leaves do contain juglone which inhibits the growth of many plants, or even can kill them. I’ve heard of people using the leaves to kill plants that they don’t want around. I wouldn’t use them in the garden.
Sharon Carson says
I have 30 black walnut trees and grow many things under and around them . Any tree will shade, use up nutrients and water . I have other trees as well . I don’t think the walnut assesment is correct from my personal observation… no matter what the academic assesment says. I know the hulls are used as a parasite remedy and I do pick up all the nuts to eat as well as make medicine and dye from the hulls . My trees are about 25-40 years old . Nettle, beans grapes and many other crops grow under and near them . Maybe it is time to re-access this .
Jacqueline @ deeprootsathome.com says
I, too, wonder why folks just rake the leaves into bags and don’t find a way to use them. I have asked permission many times before to take bags from the curb where I can tell they don’t spray with chemicals. This is a good reminder to those of us that are building soil that now is the time to collect some bags for composting. I mow ours first and rake them under shrubs and into the garden as mulch 🙂 Blessings!
Susan says
I get greedy for those leaves! 🙂
michelle says
Early in my days in CA as a new home owner, I used the time tested method of tossing my lawn clippings in the compost heap. I didnt know that the Bermuda grass growing in my lawn was a no-no in composting. Twenty years later I still have Bermuda grass that grows several feet deep and is impossible to completely eradicate from my garden beds.
Susan says
Wow! Worse than I thought!
tessa says
We feed ours to our goats, too, and call them potato chips! We shared this with our FB readers at homestadlady.com.
Nancy W says
What a timely post, I was just visiting my daughter and saw piles and pile of leaves lining the streets. I wanted a truck to bring them home to my compost pile! thanks for sharing on the Home Acre Hop. Hope to see you this Thursday for our Thanksgiving HomeAcre Hop! Nancy The Thanksgiving Home Acre Hop
Brian White says
In the fall of 2012 I built two new raised beds: 2′ x 8′ x 10″. I filled them with partially shredded leaves which settled by 50% by May of this year. I then topped off these beds with self-made composted soil and then planted tomato, pepper and squash seedlings in them. Everything grew beautifully. With that success, I built two more raised beds this fall, same size, and again filled them with leaves. But, having collected 48 tall lawn bags of leaves this year, I decided to try my hand at making leaf mold. I have two piles going, one covered, the other uncovered. Regardless of what they look like by next May, I’ll have enough for both mulching and building up the compost pile. Sure appreciate having this free resource from nature. A happy gardener in southeast Mich.
The Rural Economist says
Excellent article. I always collect our leaves. I compost about half and mulch with the the other half. Thank you for sharing on Rural Wisdom and Know How
Kristel from Healthy Frugalista says
I’m glad you included the quote about the chemical contamination of leaf mold. Every spring our city gives away free leaf compost made from the leaves they pick up in the fall. In an attempt to improve our clay soil I bring home a trailer full every year, and each year I wonder how many chemicals are in it. You’ve given me a little piece of mind.
Thanks for all the great info and ideas you share!
Susan says
Kristel, we just do the best we can, right?
Sharon Carson says
I have collected leaves for years and have people call me when there is a truckload worth… all raked & bagged . I only accept leaves from people that I know and who dont use chemicals . I found them through a freecycle group . I use dry pine needles and hardwood leaves as bedding in my stables so it is layered in my compost pile where the hay, sawdust, urine and manures help break them down.I only use completely finished, one year old compost in my bedsand never any commercial or municipal compost . I also put the bagged leaves around my fig trees to protect them and in the spring drag them out to mulch the paths between my beds where they break down over the summer and keep weeds down. I reuse the bags for my household trash .
Susan Vinskofski says
What a wonderful way to build soil, Sharon!
Lucas says
Fall leaves are the best soil fertilizer for the plants.