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Here they come!
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Posted by
Allen456 8 (
My Page) on
Sun, Oct 7, 12 at 10:18
| Leaves. Precious, precious leaves. Falling from the trees by the millions. Dutifully collected and placed along the edge of the street by my neighbors free for the taking! |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Here they come!
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| sadly my state doesn't have fall. the leaves stay on unless they are dying and grow new leaves year round. |
RE: Here they come!
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| Allen456, do you have a special way of handling them? I find they're a little cumbersome, coming all at once like they do and not wanting to stay in one place. I've seen people put up large round wire cages and I might try that this year. I wouldn't have enough greens to properly compost them as quickly as they become available, but I guess I could do that through the spring and early summer. |
RE: Here they come!
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| I was able to get some of the more "Delicate" leaves yesterday (Sunday) at the township dump site. I got some "greens" too. Some people even get rid of hosta leaves. I let mine wither in place. I'm still waiting for those lovely (more substancial) oak leaves. I misspelled SUBSTANCIAL, but can't think of correct spelling right now. I need to get some pine needles to hold the shredded leaves in place under some trees for in place composting under the trees. |
RE: Here they come!
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| Once I get enough for my pile I just start spreading them wherever I need a layer of mulch. No need to compost everything. |
RE: Here they come!
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| Oooh yeah! After "mowing them up" twice, this is the result, pic from Saturday. Still a LOT more leaves to come. |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by claire z6b Coastal MA (My Page) on
Mon, Oct 8, 12 at 10:23
| I get mostly oak and wild cherry leaves here along with pine needles. I just rake the leaves and needles off the lawn into the nearest garden bed. Snow cover is unreliable here but winter winds always come so the garden needs protection. I'll leave this natural mulch on all winter and then rake off the upper layer in the spring if it's interfering with plant/bulb growth. Otherwise, I'll leave it to compost in place. My compost pile is surrounded by trees so it gets its own leaf cover without my having to do anything. Claire |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by josko Cape cod (My Page) on
Thu, Oct 11, 12 at 10:10
To those of us near the East Coast (anyway) this doubles as a time when seaweed washes up on beaches in quantity. I pitchforked a pickup-load of mixed eelgrass and rockweed this past weekend, and plan to do another next weekend.
The stuff is in a pile on my driveway waiting for a couple good rainstorms to rinse it out before it gets moved on the veggie garden as a winter cover. About a 4"-6" layer will get spaded under next spring. |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by claire z6b Coastal MA (My Page) on
Thu, Oct 11, 12 at 13:54
| I'm also on the East Coast and seaweed washes up about 100 feet from my house as the crow flies. Unfortunately, as the person walks, it's 72 stair treads up from the beach. Too high for me to carry buckets of seaweed and I'd rather leave the seaweed down there anyway to nourish the beach grass (rationalizing a bit here, but sea level rise is scary when you're living on the top of a coastal bank). So I stick with leaves and such. Claire |
RE: Here they come!
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| I'm another fan of the idea of using the lawn mower to reduce the volume of the leaves and then mulch the beds with them so that they sheet compost in place. If you have a mulching mower with a bagging attachment, this goes much faster. Mixing the chopped up leaves into the top inch or so of soil helps them break down faster. |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by claire z6b Coastal MA (My Page) on
Thu, Oct 11, 12 at 18:57
| I keep forgetting that my new electric lawn mower is a mulcher and capable of chopping up leaves. That's a main reason I bought it. The oak leaves haven't really started dropping yet but I plan to leave as much chopped stuff on the lawn as I can get away with. Claire |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by jolj 7b/8a-S.C.,USA (My Page) on
Thu, Oct 11, 12 at 22:10
When I have time I mower the leaves, but sometimes I just cut them under & let the micro shred them for me.
I use them for mulch too.
I have a few acres of grassland with some pine trees, so I have straw & pine straw too. |
RE: Here they come!
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| My new house has more leaves than I need, but I still get excited when I see a row of those beautiful brown bags. My sister collects 3-400 bags every year and spreads them in her chicken run for them to scratch at. The next year she moves the chicken run and uses the old site for her vegetable garden. It's a great system. Martha |
RE: Here they come!
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I have a leaf sucker/chopper that was given to me at a yard sale!
Since I lost my lovely old Chinese Elm to Dutch elm disease =( I've been a bit of a leaf whore and go suck up the neighbor's leaves which actually makes them quite happy and gives me tons of chopped up leaves to use throughout the year!
Going to start tomorrow! Nancy |
RE: Here they come!
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| Lovely chinese elm? I don't think I've ever heard those in the same sentence!! ;) |
RE: Here they come!
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| Unfortunately there aren't enough leaves around here to get excited about and some are still on the trees. It's too soon and too windy right now to rake them onto the perennial beds which is what I usually do. By the time the leaves are all off the trees we likely will have snow on the ground so I can ignore this year! That's my story and I'm sticking to it! If it doesn't snow soon and there's a calm day I'll be out raking. |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by pt03 2b Southern Manitob (My Page) on
Mon, Oct 15, 12 at 21:05
| I'm expecting upwards of ten truckloads of leaves on both Tuesday and Wednesday (probably close to 4000 bags in all). There are piles and piles of bags at the end of almost every driveway in town. (Rubs hands gleefully). Lloyd |
RE: Here they come!
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| Lloyd, I am so jealous. I think I might be able to get a truck load or two from the local municipality, but no way 10 loads. |
RE: Here they come!
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| This week looks the best mower week yet this fall. A great mix of freshly fallen leaves and green grass. Mine are a mix of oaks, sweet gum and maple in this area. I bag them with the mower, scatter them out in a two inch layer, then shred/bag them a second time. The oaks require a bit more shredding and a little water in the mix. I use four by eight foot mesh bins two feet high. Easy to turn, easy to dump, cheap to make. The core temp last year averaged about 130F, which is excellent. One thing I have started to worry about is herbicides and pesticides since most of my stuff comes from the neighbors yards. |
RE: Here they come!
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| My husband teases me that I act like I'm having an org*sm every time we pass a yard full of glorious leaves or a lush white pine with a carpet of fresh needles at its base. It's really not safe for me to drive in the fall, because I'm always looking down the side streets for the tell-tale pile of brown bags that signal freshly raked or shredded leaves, so my mind isn't always on the road in front of me. Some people just don't understand the value of these things! And he tells me I'm not allowed to pick up anyone else's leaves until ours are all off the trees and collected. I try to tell him that ours will be there whenever we want them. Other peoples' will be carted away and we may never see them again. What a waste. I'm glad you people at least understand what I'm going through. I hope each of you have more understanding spouses. I've only had this one for a year, so he's still in training. He did help me rent a trailer and haul 7 loads of composted horse manure home from a nearby barnyard. So, he really is sweet, just ignorant in the ways of composting. Martha |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by pt03 2b Southern Manitob (My Page) on
Fri, Oct 19, 12 at 21:24
| Martha, tell DH they often come pre-shredded. DW put a whole page about my composting on her farm website. :-) Lloyd |
RE: Here they come!
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| Lloyd, how long does it take to remove all the glass and plastic and other non-compostables from 10 truckloads of leaves? I assume you aren't like the municipal composters around me who shred everything that anyone cares to discard in a green can or pile of green waste. |
RE: Here they come!
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- Posted by pt03 2b Southern Manitob (My Page) on
Sat, Oct 20, 12 at 14:51
| I pick out a lot of the trash as I dump the bags but there is always stuff I don't see. Once the yard trimmings have been cultivated in and have decomposed, it is actually fairly easy to collect the trash but it does take a lot of time. I do a LOT of walking picking up trash. I also hire students from time to time to help me with that. I'd guess around a hundred hours or so but that's mostly a WAG. I have also picked up a few nails with the tires on the tractor as well. :-( It is disappointing that people can be so inconsiderate but I guess that's the way things are. Lloyd |
RE: Here they come!
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| Oh, Lloyd, your obsession makes us all jealous. Leaves are falling fast now. We were out of town last week, our yearly trek to the Smoky Mountains to see the fall foliage. The state park was too beautiful to describe. So, I just really started leaf hoarding this week. So far, I have three 32 gal. trash cans of leaves and about 5 bags of leaves, all shredded. The bags are construction bags which are huge, hold a lot of shredded leaves, and don't rot over winter. As I use up the leaves, I reuse the bags for actual garbage. Karen |
RE: Here they come!
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| I now have two monster piles of primarily oak leaves, one in the front yard and one in the back. I have an ancient, free-standing shredder-chipper, but we weren't able to get it running yesterday. I may need to get out the ride around mower and make a few passes over parts of the pile so I can spread them over my beds and keep then from blowing away. It should be a beautiful day to be outside again. We were out for about 6 hours blowing the leaves off the grass and under the pines. Hope everyone else is able to enjoy today. Martha |
RE: Here they come!
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| Jimbo. That Chinese elm was the reason we bought our property! The branch overhang made a "room" about 30 ft wide and down to the ground! Being very sun sensitive, I loved my summers under that tree! Besides, as my daughter put it when we lost it "I grew up in that tree!" She did...literally! Nancy |
RE: Here they come!
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| Sorry, I was actually thinking of Siberian elm - A real thug! |
RE: Here they come!
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| The only problem I've been having is these Lycoris bulbs. Last year at this time, I dug up a TON of these from the lawn and went insane sticking them everywhere there was room in a bed. Now they're coming up under too many leaves in some places, and I've found many under some of the rocks I've brought to the yard over the summer. ...and I've also lost some of those rocks under leaves... |
RE: Here they come!
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| Here come the pumpkins at the end of the month. "Pumpkin Recycling Center Can" Temps in the fall leaf bins 110F to 125F. |
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