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| Feel free to send me to another thread, but I want to stay on this forum as I want the rose people's answers.
I was considering getting a small mulcher ($200 version) for my tree and leaf yard waste and putting the mulch in my compost bin (an open 4 ft wide circular, five ft tall plastic bin that is in shade and gets sprinkler water and zone 10 heat). I considered adding earthworms if that is feasible. Then I was going to sit and wait, then use as mulch on my plants including roses. Thoughts? Gina I don't do kitchen compost...not that committed to the compost on top of all other garden chores and fruit flies get crazy inside the house no matter what. I do give my plants coffee grounds, and I drink tons of it! |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by Kippy-the-Hippy 10 Sunset 24 (My Page) on Fri, May 4, 12 at 11:44
| we had a $200ish electric version chipper from Lowes. It could do small branches only, no leaves. It worked pretty good, until we needed to rotate the replaceable blades. No one was strong enough to get them to budge-and my guy is very strong. We ended up using the extended warranty and returning it. While it worked, it was pretty good. We used the little chips in walks or paths. We were told that the decomp process would steal nitrogen from the ground for the first year and then it would add it back later. You might do better if you want to add worms saving your grass clippings and only mulching the leaves for your compost pile and save the hard branch chips for mulch |
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| I simply rake the dried-up leaves from under the trees and spread them around the roses. With water they decompose in situ without any fuss. If your trees have very large leaves this might not be a workable solution, but I've noticed that even the larger leaves shrink considerably when they dry. No money spent, no noise or maintenance of a machine, and it seems to work quite well. Your method may work even better, so it's a personal decision. Ingrid |
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- Posted by flaurabunda 6a, Central IL (My Page) on Fri, May 4, 12 at 12:14
| We bought one of the hand-held leaf chippers last year & used it to massacre the raked-up piles. Except for blowing out a hole in the bag because we didn't pull twigs out, it worked great. I dumped the chipped leaves into a compost bin in the backyard where we also dump banana peels, coffee grounds, and eggshells. We've only been doing this for a couple of years and I have not yet used the composting material because the area it's intended for has not yet been excavated. We did put 1 bag of last year's shredded leaves into a bed this spring. I'm reading today that they should have been left to decompose for an extra season but so far I've not had any issues. Caveat--they are on top of a pretty thick layer of wood mulch & the main reason we put the leaves there was to give us something soft & smooshy to step on. I was tired of getting wood chips in my gardening shoes. |
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