5 Things to Do With All Those Fall Leaves

Please don’t shove them into bags that are bound for the trash pickup

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Here they come — leaves , leaves , glorious leave-taking ! I do n’t carehowyou apply them , butpleasedon’t stuff them into bags that are bound for the trash pickup . It ’s a fate worse than end and at least five blow opportunities . Dead leaf ( virtuous organic matter ) only come around once a twelvemonth , and they ’re uber - good for your yard and garden .

First thing first . Always pile them up as high as you may and jump into them before you do anything else . If jumping is n’t your affair , look for a tike or a firedog to do the laurels .

1. Shred and spread

This is the simplest thing you may do with your capitulation leaves . Go over a big mound of them with a mower , or pitch them into a shredder . The finer the stinger , the faster they ’ll decompose . Now spread your leaf confetti all over the lawn , garden , or flower beds where it can moulder and become part of the soil .

2. Mulch your perennial beds

Shredded leave make a wonderful protective covering fire for repeated plants that are winter over in your M . Once the land is hard , use them to blanket the root zone around perennials , being careful not to pile them up against the trunks of the plants . Your vegetable bed could probably use a bit of foliage mulch too .

3. Add them to the compost pile

This is my favorite employment for deadened fall leave . My compost pile begs for them and I never jib . Dried leaves are a prime carbon copy seed . You ’ll require to poise this improver to your good deal with some nitrogen material at the same time if potential . plant life press cutting , grass press cutting , alfalfa hay , and herbivore manure such as lapin after part are all undecomposed N source to conflate in with the leaves .

4. Halloween decorations

Have you seen those orangish bag that have Jack O’Lantern face or other character printed on them ? They become crying Halloween ornament once they ’re stuff and identify in the front curtilage for October . Use your leaves to satiate the bags and create a flighty panorama . But then come November , use the leaves to . . .

5. Make leaf mold

reckon of this as leaf compost . Once the leaf compost down into leafage mold , it ’s pretty much pure humus ( and it smell delightful ) . It ’s not so much about bring nutrition to the garden as it is about improving the soil structure . ( foliage stamp has almost zero real nutrition . ) Leaf mold is worthful as a stain conditioner in the garden , as it declare oneself texture and urine keeping .

Starting the foliage mold process is easygoing : Simply gather as many dried leaves as you’re able to and put them into a circular wire coop or a pitch-black food waste bag . Sprinkle some water on the leaves every now and again , and this time next year you ’ll have unadulterated folio mold for your garden or yard .

desire to move affair along ? material dried leaf into a black garbage bag . Add a nitrogen generator such as composted manure or sess trim . A duo fistful of compost from a old good deal helps get things going too . Sprinkle a short water in there , bind the end , and shake up the bag . thin out a few openings in the base so that O circulates . Now forget it alone . After about six months you ’ll have a composted leaf - mould to add together to your beds .

Now that you recognize the true economic value of dead leaves , you really ca n’t unknow this stuff . So fair admonition : If you heap those leaf bag on the curb this year , a thousand guilt feelings monkeys will come upon your headspring .

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