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| What do you do with fallen leaves in which weeds that have gone to seed or are going to seed are intermixed? Lovely dried-up leaves mostly maple, also ash and other leaves, by the side of the road at our house. There are a lot - and I do mean a lot - of leaves that I could use. Unfortunately, there is also crabgrass and its seeds, and Japanese stilt grass, and its seeds.
There are also spots in the garden where I didn't get to all the weeds, and I have the same problem. I have actually compulsively and meticulously removed as many of the seed heads as I could, and I then pulled and bagged up the grasses. However, I know that I missed many of them: it's simply not possible to get them all, even if I had the patience for it. I would love to use the crumbled up leaves in garden beds. If I do, I realize I will have to deal with the consequences next year. As in, weeding and more weeding, seemingly ad infinitum. What would you all do with the ones by road -- use them or leave them to be collected by the municipality? What about the ones in the garden? Should I use them, or bag them up and get rid of them? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Most weeds can grow most anywhere & in most any soil, that how they became weeds. I found that they need to be in the top inch of soil to get light & grow. I compost everything, but what I save for mulch. I mulch 2 inches, if weeds come up I add more mulch. When I have a windfall or stockpile of leaves, I just mulch 4-6 inches to start with & never worry about weed seeds. It is an old Ruth Stout trick, that really works. |
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| To be clear: you add the crumbled leaves and then top them with mulch? So, mulch over mulch as it were? Thanks! |
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| Unless you are vacuuming up the leaves there should be no Crab Grass seeds as they are tiny and are probably down in the dirt. I use leaves often that fall on old Crab Grass and have not had problems in areas where the Crab Grass was not before. |
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| That is something I have never concerned myself about even though I have had some bad "weeds" mixed into the leaves I picked up. I have had Tree of Heaven seeds germinate here, probably this is where I got Sheep Sorrel and several other "weeds" that are pretty easily controlled with more mulch, or even by manually pulling them out, or mowing them down. I have even had Oak, Maple, Chestnut, and several other trees grow from the seeds included in the bags of leaves. No problem for me since the leaves are so valuable to my soil. |
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| You're right, kimmsr, in that I should value what the leaves can provide over whatever weeding I might have to do in the future. Thanks. RpR, maybe you've not had problems because you're in zone 3/4, and the annuals are done? Here in zone 6, a lot of the crabgrass and Japanese stilt grass is still growing and producing seeds. This is especially the case with the weeds I was referring to: they're right next to the road, ie., blacktop, and the road's warmth probably helps keep those things going. I've seen fallen leaves on top of weed seeds, but then with yet more weed seeds on the leaves themselves. I think you're right that, as I collect them, some of those seeds will probably fall to the ground. Thanks! |
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| lynxe, Is it possible to mow off the weeds before the leaves fall next time...kind of anticipation the windfall? |
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| Where I have it the worst, I mow it onto the pavement but crabgrass seeds last years so I also put down anti-emergent compounds and pull them by hand but I still do not get any spread from using leaves that have fallen on that area. This year after major application of anti-crabgrass compounds, this spring it looked like it was beaten but when the heat came and rain stopped the crabgrass showed up. |
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| wayne, most of the leaves have fallen already, and worse, part of the area that theoretically could be mowed is both too wet and too steep. We can and have mowed part of the way, but the rest of the stretch is rather a weedy mess. Where we mowed, the weeds are fairly limited. For next year's mowing, I'm going to have to sharpen the push mower's blades and use the thing. RpR, there's no pavement: it's just road and the stretch of grass between it and part of our property. The township mows its bit of the grass a couple of times a year so come to think of it, the weeds aren't as bad as they'd otherwise be. I've actually nearly finished cutting off almost all the seed heads. If anyone were to have seen me, they'd have thought me totally OCD nuts. (It's roughly 100 feet long, and I wouldn't sit or even kneel due to the risk of deer ticks! And that's just on one side of the driveway, too.) But now, all I have left to do is yank the Japanese stilt grass out. Most of it can be hand-pulled; whatever's left probably won't have time to seed before frost. I think the crabgrass should be doable as well. BTW, RpR, we used corn gluten in the fenced in part of the property (where we garden and have a "lawn") to try to tame crabgrass here. Like you said: it got beaten down, but then came back with a vengeance. I tried hand weeding but was ultimately defeated. |
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