What Should You Do With All Those Autumn Leaves? Don’t Throw Away Free Fertiliser
What Should You Do With All Those Autumn Leaves? Don’t Throw Away Free Fertiliser
Every autumn, nature delivers tonnes of free soil improver—and we spend money getting rid of it.
Autumn leaves can be irritating.
They blow across the lawn, block drains, collect on paths, fill gutters and somehow appear again five minutes after you have finished sweeping.
The obvious response is to gather them into bags, put them in the green-waste bin and let somebody else deal with them.
But perhaps we should look at fallen leaves rather differently.
A tree has spent an entire summer using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to construct those leaves. When autumn comes, the leaves fall naturally to the ground, where fungi, bacteria, worms and countless other organisms gradually break them down.
In a woodland, nobody arrives with a leaf blower and a council green-waste bin.
The leaves become part of the soil.
So instead of asking:
"How do I get rid of all these leaves?"
perhaps we should ask:
"How can I use them?"
The answer could save money, improve your soil and create useful habitat for wildlife.
First, Are Autumn Leaves Really Fertiliser?
Not quite in the same sense as a bag of commercial plant fertiliser.
Most of the nutrients that trees can easily recover from their leaves are withdrawn before the leaves fall.
What remains is nevertheless extremely useful organic material.
As leaves decompose they help create humus, improve soil structure, encourage soil organisms and increase the soil's ability to retain moisture.
So I would describe fallen leaves primarily as free soil conditioner rather than concentrated fertiliser.
And good soil is enormously valuable.
Garden centres sell bags of soil improver, compost, bark mulch and organic matter every year.
Meanwhile many of us are sending very similar raw material away in our green bins.
There is something slightly strange about that.
1. Make Leaf Mould
Probably the simplest and most useful thing you can do with autumn leaves is make leaf mould.
Leaf mould is simply partly or completely decomposed leaves.
Unlike a conventional compost heap, where bacteria are heavily involved in breaking down a mixture of green and brown materials, fallen leaves are largely decomposed by fungi.
And the process could hardly be easier.
The simple method
Collect the leaves.
Put them into:
a wire mesh enclosure;
a simple wooden leaf bin;
old compost bags with holes punched in them;
heavy-duty bin bags with ventilation holes;
or a dedicated leaf-mould container.
Moisten them if they are very dry.
Then leave them alone.
That is almost the entire process.
There is no need for sophisticated composting equipment.
How long does it take?
After roughly a year you will normally have partially decomposed material that can be used as a mulch.
Leave it longer and it becomes darker, softer and increasingly soil-like.
Some leaves decompose quickly.
Others, particularly thicker or waxier leaves, can take considerably longer.
If you run a lawn mower over leaves before storing them, the smaller pieces generally break down more quickly.
That is useful if you have a large quantity of leaves on a lawn.
2. Let the Lawn Mower Do the Work
There is another approach that requires even less effort.
If there is only a moderate covering of leaves on your lawn, try running over them with the mower.
The mower chops the leaves into tiny fragments.
Depending upon your mower, you can either collect the mixture of grass and shredded leaves for composting or leave a very light scattering of fragments on the lawn to decompose.
The important word here is light.
A thick blanket of wet leaves can smother grass, reduce light and create poor conditions underneath.
But finely shredded leaves dispersed across the lawn disappear surprisingly quickly.
Instead of filling several bags, you have effectively recycled the material exactly where it fell.
3. Add Some Leaves to the Compost Heap
Autumn leaves are also valuable in a compost heap.
Good compost generally benefits from having a mixture of wetter, nitrogen-rich materials and drier, carbon-rich materials.
Kitchen vegetable scraps and fresh grass clippings are relatively nitrogen rich.
Dry autumn leaves are relatively carbon rich.
That makes leaves particularly useful when your compost heap becomes too wet and green.
Rather than adding an enormous quantity of leaves all at once, mix them through the heap.
You can also store bags of dry leaves beside the compost bin and gradually add them during the year whenever you add grass cuttings or food waste.
I particularly like this idea because autumn gives you a large supply of "brown" composting material at exactly the time when it is freely available.
You are effectively storing an ingredient for later.
4. Use Leaves as Mulch
We spend a surprising amount of money buying mulch.
Yet leaves can perform many of the same functions.
Spread suitable leaves over flower beds, beneath shrubs or around established plants and they can help:
protect the soil surface;
reduce evaporation;
suppress some weed growth;
reduce soil erosion;
protect soil organisms;
and gradually add organic matter as they decay.
Again, moderation matters.
Do not bury small plants beneath a metre of wet leaves.
A modest layer is much more useful.
Shredding the leaves first can prevent them forming a dense, wet mat.
Around established shrubs and trees, however, fallen leaves can often simply remain where nature put them.
5. Perhaps You Don't Need to Clear Every Leaf
This may be the biggest change of all.
We have become accustomed to gardens looking extremely tidy.
Lawns should be immaculate.
Flower beds should contain no dead stems.
Leaves should disappear.
But a perfectly tidy garden is not necessarily the best garden for wildlife.
Beneath fallen leaves you may find:
beetles;
spiders;
worms;
woodlice;
caterpillars;
insect larvae;
fungi;
and numerous microscopic organisms.
These creatures form part of a much larger food web.
Some become food for birds.
Others help break down plant material.
Some improve the soil.
So perhaps the corner behind the shed does not need clearing.
Perhaps a layer of leaves underneath the hedge can stay exactly where it is.
That is not neglect.
It can be habitat.
6. Create a Wildlife Leaf Pile
If you do want the lawn and paths cleared, create a designated wildlife area.
Choose a quiet corner of the garden and pile up some leaves.
Add a few small branches or pieces of dead wood if you have them.
Then leave the pile undisturbed.
It may provide shelter for a range of invertebrates and other small animals through autumn and winter.
A large garden might have several deliberately untidy areas.
Even a small garden could probably find room beneath a hedge or behind a shed.
One of the simplest ways to make gardens more wildlife-friendly is sometimes simply to stop removing everything nature produces.
7. Clear the Places Where Leaves Really Are a Problem
Of course, "leave the leaves" should not become an absolute rule.
There are places where leaves really do need clearing.
Paths and steps
Wet leaves can become extremely slippery.
Clear heavily used paths, steps and entrances.
Drains
Leaves collecting around drainage channels and gullies can obstruct water flow just when autumn rainfall increases.
Remove them before they create a problem.
Ponds
A few leaves are natural.
Large quantities of decomposing leaves, however, can add too much organic material to a small pond.
A temporary autumn net may help if you have trees immediately above the water.
Lawns
A thick covering of leaves left for weeks can damage the grass underneath.
Move them somewhere more useful.
The aim isn't to stop clearing leaves.
It is to stop automatically treating them as waste.
8. What About Diseased Leaves?
This is one area where some judgement is required.
Leaves showing significant signs of disease may not be the best material to reuse immediately around susceptible plants.
Depending on the plant and disease involved, disposing of affected material through an appropriate local authority green-waste scheme can sometimes be sensible.
Equally, not every brown spot on a leaf means your garden faces a biological emergency.
If you have a recurring disease problem on a particular tree or plant, identify the disease first and follow appropriate advice rather than simply assuming every fallen leaf must either be composted or destroyed.
9. A Simple Autumn Leaf System
You don't need to turn leaf recycling into another complicated gardening project.
Try this instead.
Leaves on paths
Sweep them up.
Leaves on the lawn
Mow and shred them.
Leaves beneath trees and shrubs
Leave many of them where they are.
Excess shredded leaves
Put them in the compost.
Large quantities of remaining leaves
Make leaf mould.
A small pile in a quiet corner
Leave it for wildlife.
Suddenly the annual autumn leaf problem almost disappears.
10. The Money-Saving Argument
One bag of leaves has very little financial value.
But look at what gardeners routinely buy:
compost;
mulch;
soil improver;
bark;
organic matter;
moisture-retaining soil conditioners.
Then look at what trees produce for free every autumn.
The leaves won't replace every product.
They certainly won't replace plant food where extra nutrients are genuinely required.
But they can reduce how much imported material your garden needs.
There is also a wider principle here.
Going green often becomes associated with buying something:
a greener car,
a greener boiler,
a greener gadget,
a greener product.
Yet many genuinely sustainable actions involve buying nothing.
Keeping a pile of leaves is about as low-tech as environmental action gets.
Autumn Is Recycling Season
I increasingly think one of the best ways of looking at a garden is to imagine that very little in it is actually waste.
Grass clippings can become compost.
Prunings can become habitat or chipped mulch.
Kitchen peelings can become compost.
Rain can be stored.
And autumn leaves can become tomorrow's soil.
A woodland has been running this recycling system for millions of years without purchasing bags of compost from a garden centre.
Perhaps our gardens can borrow a little of that thinking.
So this autumn, when the leaves begin to fall, clear the paths, clear the drains and protect the lawn where necessary.
But before you fill the green bin, stop for a moment.
That pile isn't rubbish.
It is habitat.
It is organic matter.
It is future leaf mould.
It is part of your garden's natural recycling system.
And above all, it is free.
Every autumn, nature delivers tonnes of free soil improver. Perhaps this year we should keep a little more of it.
#GoingGreen #AutumnGarden #LeafMould #Composting #WildlifeGarden #SustainableGardening #GardeningTips #SaveMoney #SoilHealth #GardenWildlife #SustainableLiving #ZeroWasteGarden
Comments
Post a Comment