By Staff
What are you going to do with all those leaves?
Some of you are going to rake and bag them and set them along the curbside.
And then again some of us will turn them in to garden gold (compost or free mulch).
Mother Nature has been doing it for a long, long time now.
The floors of the forest and woods have excellent dirt.
Think about all the flowers that grow there.
Have you ever scooped up a handful? It's loose, full of organic matter, has a good, clean dirt smell and filled with worms.
We should all be so lucky to have soil like that.
Composted leaves are not only excellent in their nutrient content, they're full of decaying organic matter. Leaves are low in nitrogen and a rich source of calcium and magnesium and other minerals.
Composted leaves improve soil structure. I have read that it can hold more than 300 percent if its weight in water. It will also aerate and loosen up heavy soils. They add organic matter to sandy soils. It also traps and holds nutrients, so when plants need them they are available.
Ground up or shredded leaves make a great mulch in your flower beds.
Especially oak. They repel slugs, cutworms and grubs of June beetles. Shredded leaves cut down on weed seed germination and keep the mud from splashing up onto flowers and foliage, which keeps rusts and other fungal diseases from setting in.
An organic mulch such as shredded leaves also insulates and keeps your soil cool in the summer and, of course, you will not have to water as often and this saves us time, money and a precious resource, too.
Your plant's roots aren't stressed from the heat. Also, keep any mulch from the base of your plants and here's why: Mulch mounded around stems and tree trunks allow pests, disease organisms and moisture to be in constant contact with plant tissues. Mulches also make a garden look neat and tidy.
There is only one drawback to leaf mulches – they only last about four months, so they have to be replenished. But look at the positive side, as they decompose they are enriching our soil.
Right now I like to use a bagged lawn mower, as it mixes grass clippings in with the leaves. So, whether you use them as a mulch or make them into compost, you yourself can improve your own garden soil with shredded leaves. And the best thing is that they're free.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked wood and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped into the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread;
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs, the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crows, through all the gloomy day.