Autumn’s bounty of fallen leaves is not normally an issue for lawns and gardens—mulching the bottom with them helps to feed the soil for a more healthy yard.
In case you grew up in a neighborhood with numerous timber, likelihood is you needed to put in loads of hours every fall raking the leaves, bagging them up, after which sending them off someplace, most probably to the landfill. And also you have been in all probability informed that this was so the yard would look tidier and the leaves would not kill the grass. This fable has in all probability offered extra rakes and luggage than the rest. And whereas raking might have enriched the pockets of neighborhood children, the follow removes necessary soil vitamins, which householders then normally repurchase in a bag or jug of fertilizer from the native backyard middle.
As a result of we’re older and hopefully wiser now, eradicating leaves—an necessary annual enter to our native soil biology—and sending them elsewhere should not make as a lot sense because it might need earlier than we knew higher. Whereas it is at the least partially true that extreme quantities of fallen leaves left in thick piles all winter can smother a garden, leaving the leaves on the bottom as mulch will be an efficient soil-building technique to help a wholesome yard.
Advantages of Fallen Leaves
Treehugger / Kaitlyn Kilpatrick
Fallen leaves—as an extra bodily layer of natural supplies above floor—present meals, shelter, and nesting or bedding supplies to wildlife, in addition to overwintering safety for bugs, all contributing to a wholesome yard. The soil beneath the leaves additionally advantages from this autumnal present, because the leaves are primarily composted over time into vitamins that feed the grass crop the next yr. However, leaves additionally feed microbes within the soil, that are a very powerful crop you may develop, contemplating that each one vegetation in your yard relies on wholesome soil biology.
In accordance with Nationwide Wildlife Federation Naturalist David Mizejewski, “Fallen leaves provide a double profit. Leaves type a pure mulch that helps suppress weeds and on the similar time fertilizes the soil because it breaks down. Why spend cash on mulch and fertilizer when you can also make your personal?”
Maximizing the Advantages
Treehugger / Kaitlyn Kilpatrick
Nevertheless, leaving the leaves to put the place they fall within the autumn is not the simplest manner of maximizing their profit, as generally they’ll pile up in areas the place they could successfully smother a bit of the yard. However, there are a number of methods to strategy your leaf harvest, relying in your scenario.
As one plant and soil specialist, Dr. Thomas Nikoai of Michigan State College, put it, leaving the leaves on the garden is ” … not solely not an issue, it is superior.” In accordance with an interview at Christian Science Monitor, Dr. Nikolai says that mowing over the fallen leaves to show them into smaller items will improve the garden’s fertility, not kill it. And, whereas it is normally finest to make use of a mulching mower or mulching attachment to transform the bigger leaves into smaller-sized particles, nearly any mower can do the job; it is merely a matter of mowing over the leaf-filled yard a couple of occasions in the course of the season.
Nevertheless, for those who’re cultivating a tidier look to your garden and don’t desire these pesky dried leaves getting in the best way, you may rake them into backyard beds, flower beds, or mulch round timber, both as-is or through the use of a bagger in your mower to gather them. Overlaying backyard beds with a thick mulch within the fall will be an efficient and easy option to construct soil fertility and maintain your yard tidier.
However, far be it from me to encourage you to make use of garden tools in a manner that it isn’t meant. I’ve heard, nevertheless, which you could put leaves into a big trash can after which use your weed-eater within the can to slash the leaves into tiny bits to be used as mulch.
Leaves could be a nice additive to a house compost pile, and by retaining a leaf pile subsequent to your compost, you should use leaves to cowl layers of kitchen meals waste all through the winter. You can even use fallen leaves to reclaim marginal sections of a yard by constructing an enormous leaf pile there and letting it sit all winter. By spring, the decrease a part of the leaf pile can have reworked into wealthy soil, whereas the center and prime layers can be good for mulch or a soil modification for spring backyard beds.
Leaf Drop-Offs
Treehugger / Kaitlyn Kilpatrick
If none of those makes use of for fallen leaves work on your scenario, you may look into native choices for leaf drop-offs—locations that acquire yard waste at a central location and switch it into compost and mulch. Though this feature requires raking and bagging, it retains a possible pure useful resource out of the waste stream.
And for those who’re like me—all the time in search of sources of free natural matter to make use of as compost, mulch, and soil-building supplies—you would possibly wish to put your identify on the market as a potential drop-off location for neighborhood leaves. You can even contact the coordinators of the native leaf drop-off and ask about getting luggage of leaves at no cost from the occasion (I’ve completed this earlier than and it is an efficient and easy option to get free components for enriching your soil).