Awhile back I posted that I had obtained tons of free leaves and put them on my garden without shredding. They had to be 4-6". I tilled them in and it was a thick ugly mess from a planting standpoint. Two months later when I started planting they were GONE! However this is not a recommendation, I just happened to have the right conditions. And then there's the free straw with seeds that I put on top after tilling in the leaves and resulting rye, but that's another story!
Great! I hope you'll keep us posted on how said garden performs this year. (Are you keeping a journal?)
I wish I could find a large source of leaves where I could put 'em on 4-6 inches deep! (They need a green-eyed jealousy icon. :| ) Best yet would be in the July/August time frame, when my garden is down for the summer. I imagine if they were kept pretty wet, they'd break down very quickly. Maybe I need to make friends with some yard maintainance professionals.... (Are there organic yard guys out there?)
~ True grits, more grits, fish grits and collards. Life is good, where grits are swollar'd.
Posts: 355 | Location: zone 8b, MS | Registered: December 22, 2003
My normal source of leaves is a neighborhood with lots of trees. The residents rake the leaves into the street and the city picks them up once a week. I get there before the city. I tend to like this method better because you can tell what you're getting. A couple years ago I had a fenced in area 30'X30'X4' completely filled with leaves. I shredded them for compost and mulch. It took almost 2 years to use them all up. This year I'm composting leaves, horse and cow manure, and straw as well as the fridge science projects. Ride around in the fall and spy on your local neighboorhoods. I have yet to find an organic lawn maintenance company.
I try to do that when I go to town. But I get stuck picking up bagged leaves from curbside, and have to be careful when I open them. Unfortunately, the different Coast cities are on different schedules, so I just get lucky sometimes in making a cache of bagged leaves prior to trash pickup. (I try to stay home as much as possible because of the distance and cost of gasoline - - it's a 30 mile drive to the Gulf.)
~ True grits, more grits, fish grits and collards. Life is good, where grits are swollar'd.
Posts: 355 | Location: zone 8b, MS | Registered: December 22, 2003
Hey I have a chance to get about as many leaves as I want. I was wondering Dirt what would you recomend on how to handle this? I was thinking of basically doing what you just said, but you said you wouldn't recomend it. Why is that? I was going to by straw, but at $3 a bale I was going to use free leaves.
Also the person fron Mississippi (I forgot your screen name already sorry) why do you have to be careful when you open the bags of leaves?
I hope you'll keep us posted on how said garden performs this year. (Are you keeping a journal?)
