Yard leaves

[worth1]

Your trees and yard like nothing better than for you to leave the leaves on the ground.
This is natures way of feeding the micro organisms that help your yard and your trees.
I just leave mine where they are and mow over them.
Other leaves get sent to the big holding area at the end of my driveway.
Other micro soils end up with them and I then use it as a mulch in other places after it rots.
In no form or fashion will I put them at the edge of the road to be picked up by the trash truck.

[bower]

I only wish I had more of them!

[SeanInVa]

I used to rake them all up and let the kids play in them. After I stopped doing that, I would just mow them over. This year, I've raked them some, and then mulched them with a push mower and carted them all over to holding areas next to the compost, where they will either be composted, or stored for use as mulch in the garden plots

But I absolutely agree, don't just throw them away!

[Paquebot]

There are two ways of looking at the need for leaves to stay or go. If the tree wants them back, they will be flat when they fall. If the tree doesn't need them, they will be curled. The flat ones remain while the wind can blow the curled ones away. Maple family is a good example of both ways.

If left alone, deciduous leaves will eventually become humus. It takes about 1,000 years to accumulate an inch. Most common tree in my city is silver maple. That's one which would probably do that in 750 years. My choice is white oak which may make an inch in 500. My garden is almost a foot deeper than it was 50 years ago and all of that depth was made with maple and oak leaves. Some years there was a pile almost 6' tall to begin breaking down in the fall and ready for mulch in the spring. Few others can claim a compost pile that big!

If you don't have trees to supply them, and you live in a community where leaves are picked up by the city, they are fair game for "leaf raiders". If the homeowner has used a bagging mower to pick them up, added bonus as they'll be compact and ready to immediately begin to break down. When I was associated with a community garden, hauled in over 500 yards of such leaves over a 5-year period. That didn't count the annual 10-12 yards for home garden. There are some places where I have picked up their leaves since 2006. (Mix of white oak, silver maple, and white pine.) Everything from that stop is either spread right away or composted.

Not many leaves set out for pickup are already shredded so one may have to do it if a suitable mower is available. Only time I resort to that is for white oak. I'll reduce 3 bags down to one and compost them. It's worth the extra effort as there is more nitrogen in them than in horse manure. Presently there are about 20 bags of whole oak leaves stashed to use as mulch next spring. Being whole, they will break down slow and suppress weed growth all summer.

None of the leaves mentioned here were from my trees. Only have two trees and they arfe even better than maple or oak. They are apple and mulberry. Both are much higher in nitrogen than most common trees. They are picked up with a mulching mower and eventually used on the compost tumbler. They do not need any other green material to create a full heat cycle. Never have enough of those super ones.

Martin

[GoDawgs]

Got maybe 2-3 acres of mowed area with leaves minus the garden. I've been vacuuming up leaves with the mower bagger and making two big piles, soon to be a third pile when the downed leaves finally dry out enough. All piled up leaves will mulch the vegetable garden consisting of sixteen 4x18' beds and two 18x20 non-bed open areas from spring through summer until next year's leaves come down. Two exceptions, the first being the sandy bare area under two oak trees that's been eroded by rain over time and exposing roots. I layered grass clippings over that area late summer/early fall and now I'm just letting the fallen leaves carpet that area. No more erosion. The second exception is the area where pine straw has fallen and mixed with leaves. It clogs the leaf bagger.

[Daphne]

I use every single leaf. And grass clippings in the summer.

[Growing Coastal]

The only leaves I am getting rid of this year are the apple tree leaves that were heavily infested with aphids and moths. Will spray with lime/sulfur when there are a few clear days this winter. Haven't had to do that for many years. Other leaves are all for mulch or compost. The birds and I play a game with leaves all winter. They rummage around and kick them onto the lawn. I go out and rake them back onto the bed. Repeat.

[bower]

The native birch and pin cherry (which have a small presence here in mostly conifer forest) have small leaves that can never be found or collected once the wind has taken them. The only tree that I planted that has flourished and grown large enough to contribute leaves to collect is the European Alder. Those should be N rich too, and I'm grateful to have them. The EA has such a high growth rate, most of them were able to outgrow the heavy browsings. Ash is starting to show potential, at least the best one is quite tall but needs room to branch out, so is not producing much in the way of leaves. But hare and moose don't seem to like them. Other trees/shrubs including sugar maple, boreal oak, and white oak and white mulberry and hawthorn have survived but remained small in local soil conditions and the heavy browsing of hares and/or moose. My apple trees have been reduced to apple bushes - no apples on those either. Hazels do have nice big leaves and enjoyed a couple years respite from the heaviest browsing lately, Aside from a few dye experiments, I have left such leaves as they produce wherever they fall. I have read that Elderberry leaves and wood are rich in N and break down rapidly. I have only one surviving in the long term and every year loses some woody parts to the dratted stem boring beetles.
This past year I planted some larger cherry trees which are hardy and bear a large fruit, also some random maples, both of which came from a treed city lot - where I also forage for leaves. Going forward my hope would be to plant enough of those vigorous maples so that some of them survive the hungry animals.

[Nan6b]

Pawpaws produce large fruit at a young age, the largest fruit of any native North American species. The trees are not browsed by deer, although the fallen fruit is. It grows in part shade if necessary, and its leaves are huge: some a foot long.

[bjbebs]

Agree with Paquebot's methods in every way. I have many varied species of trees in the yard. Oak, maple, elm, sycamore, mulberry, birch, pine, etc. These leaves are windrowed and mulched in place with the mowers. All leaves that go in the garden are collected in the neighborhood. These are mowed and bagged and set on the curb for yard waste pick-up. I've been gathering from the same folks for many years. Some will call me when they have several bags and I'll return the empties to be used again. Upwards of 200 bags will go on the garden in the fall. Many more will go into open compost heaps and a spin composter. The small amounts of fresh mowed grass really kick the piles off. What was a ten foot high pile has now been reduced to half in 2 months. A couple large trailer loads of horse manure goes on top of the leaves. We have had record high temps the last few days with an inch plus rain last night. I emptied the rain gauge and took a spade out to the garden and turned over a couple small areas. Every shovelfull showed active worms. Almost Jan 1 and the worms are breaking down the leaves. I don't have a clue about the chemical makeup of leaves as Paque does but I do believe that leaves are the absolute best amendment to be added to gardens.

[Sue_CT]

Just curiious, do you worry at all about chemicals used on lawns around the trees and if those chemicals could be taken up by the tree and present in the leaves? The reason I ask is that I use a lawn service for basic fertilizing and weed control and I have never used my leaves because I could never get an answer about whether chemicals not safe for food could be in those leaves. I have enough maple and other leaves to make a difference in my small garden, but I have never used them.

[Paquebot]

bjbebs and I are parallels when it comes to leaves. We could get technical and say what leaves are best left for waste pickup or fought over. The NPK value of many are available and will show that many are even higher than horse manure. The theory of a tree wanting to keep them or to share is true. My back yard us covered with flat apple leaves. They have 1% nitrogen and the tree wants to keep them. What doesn't have apple leaves has mulberry. Again they are high NPK and the tree would like to keep them.

Oak leaves are my favorite, as mentioned. NPK value is .8-.35-.15. For composting purposes, they are considered a green despite being brown. Years ago one of the Iowa schools experimented with potatoes for a number of years. The only fertilizer the plot got was oak leaves. Production never wavered throughout. The oak leaves replaced everything that the potatoes removed. I have one area which has been in potatoes since 1990. Potatoes are planted early under mounded rows. The valleys between the rows are filled with shredded leaves. No later hilling and little weeding. By harvest time, most are gone and reduced to about ¼" of humus.

The potato patch will also get something else. Several days ago, came home with my F-150 box half full of pine boughs. They were the unsold white and Norway pine boughs as a local garden center. They also will eventually be reduced to small bits with the mulching mower. They will become part of the soil used to hill the potatoes. That's for a temporary acidic buffer to prevent scab. NPK value of those needles is .5-.12-.03.

Martin

[bower]

I had no idea that oak leaves could be considered a 'green'. Great story about the potatoes.

I have read something about different tree leaves and pH. iirc, maple was especially good for pushing pH upwards over the long term. Birch as well. Those higher in N such as oak probably and my European Alder would likely push the pH down. I know all about the conifers because they are what we've got. They don't help the clay pH 4 very much.

[Paquebot]

One thing to remember is that it takes a lot of leaves to make a difference in heavy soil. In Nature, it takes a thousand years to make an inch of humus. A gardener in Michigan once lamented that it took 10,000 years to make 10" of soil and a glacier pushed it all into Indiana. Shredded small, one can work several inches into the soil. After a couple rains, most will be broken down enough to release their NPK for plants, just like in the forest. The good thing for us is that they eventually become carbon humus. That lasts for centuries and is what the majority of my garden soil is..

Martin

[bower]

We are just 10,000 years since the glaciers retreated and scraped off several km off the top of the Avalon Peninsula where I live. Starting from bare rocks and a bit of clay, allowing some time for trees to be able to colonize, mostly conifers, the humus in our forest here now is only about an inch in most places. Some has a bit of clay below, other places it's just rock. I would be much too old to garden if I decided to wait for nature's magic soil to appear.

[Paquebot]

In the northwoods of MN, WI, and MI, humus duff has accumulated to almost a foot. Entire ecosystems have developed in it. Then nightcrawlers come along and destroy it all in a couple years. There was supposedly not a crawler in this city until I moved here in 1963. They could consume 6" of shredded leaves in a few months and start on sticks. Considered them as my garden friends despite some annoying tricks. Now gone and the only thing I can think of is gypsy moth spraying several years ago. Didn't matter as the leaves still break down.

Martin

[bower]

I read this https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-sco ... -1.5370724 the other day, about different types of worms which are spreading north into the boreal forest. There is a type that breaks down leaves on the soil surface (Dendrobaena?) and has different effects than the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris which burrows deeper and breaks down organic material that is buried in the soil. I don't know if we have both types here locally or not. Deciduous trees are mostly urban - I don't think I've ever seen a worm in the coniferous forest. There isn't enough leaf or humus for them to eat, I guess!

I trenched my potatoes with comfrey leaves this past year, as I've read some people do in UK. I don't know if it affected yield but wow did it ever produce lots of worms! There were more worms in that bed than in my compost pile, which is to say, what a lot of worms!

[Paquebot]

Worms were not seen in the coniferous forest since there never was any. Thee is not a single native worm in much of North America. The original native worm of parts of the south have long ago been replaced by European worms. Every bit of the US prairie soil was mace without them. There has never been a native earthworm in MN, WI, and MI since the Ice Age. The entire ecosystem evolved without them. That's why nightcrawlers can be so destructive when released into in such areas.

Martin

[MissS]

That is really interesting. I was taught that a garden without worms was not a good thing. That worms are healthy and needed for breaking down matter and supplying nutrients.
I am in a new house as of a year ago, and I was alarmed because I hardly saw a single worm in the yard and I have rocky gravelly soil. It's all just fill. I have been adding lots of organic matter and now the worm population is increasing some. I was so happy to see this and now I have learned from you that they aren't so good.

[Paquebot]

There are 3 types of worms, anecuc, The endogeic, and epigeic. The first are the nightcrawer types which burrow deep into the earth and feed on the surface. The second is the type which remains burrowed in the soil and consumes whatever organic matter it finds there. The third does not burrow and are the "red wigglers" often found in leaf litter and compost. Since they do not burrow, they are not hardy in cold zones but survive as cocoons. All are European invaders.

Martin