Composting Makes Fallen Leaves a Valuable Commodity

September 25, 2018 Examiner Media Home Guru

By Bill Primavera

In the weeks ahead, the leaves of our maples, oaks and ash trees will be turning colors through the miracle of photosynthesis and falling to the ground. You can actually hear them as they hit and cover the lawn.

In my last home, the property hosted a giant maple tree in the middle of the front lawn and another maple of equal age in our backyard. In my youth, before I could afford a lawn and landscaping service, I got stuck with the job of raking the brown, orange, red and yellow leaves from the ground.

It was a formidable job that had its positives, like good exercise, and negatives, such as leaving me with piles of leaves to be reckoned with. Actually, I would leave those piles in place for a few days so that my young daughter could have the fun of jumping in and out of them. Unlike what many homeowners in my town do, I never placed them in paper bags to be picked up by the town sanitation services. After all, why should I give away such a valuable commodity?

Some of the last leaves to fall during the fall season would simply be left on the ground, and I would plow through them with my lawnmower to reduce volume and to speed up decomposition time. That would result in a large volume of material that could be used partly for mulch and partly for the chore of making “black gold” in my compost pile in a back corner of my yard.

While a large pile of leaves will decompose, the process is very slow. But leaf volume and decomposition time is greatly reduced by shredding. After my daughter was finished playing in the leaves, I would mow over the piles several times with my mower. Actually, a certain percentage of the shredded leaves can be applied to the lawn as fertilizer, but if it’s more than three-quarters of an inch deep, you could end up with yellow and brown patches of lawn come spring.

A percentage of the mulch was allocated to my perennial shade garden, a daunting task, shaded by the two aforementioned maple trees. Also, I used the mulch in my vegetable garden, which over the years dwindled from a wide variety of vegetables (even corn) to just a few vines of melon and cucumbers.

During the first few seasons of more extensive vegetable gardening, I even used the mulch to cover stretches of the garden that hosted cold-hardy vegetables like carrots and beets. By springtime, I would simply turn those rotting leaves into the soil.

Because decaying leaves use up nitrogen, I would replace nitrogen with an organic source such as composted animal manure before spring planting.

I also used shredded leaves as good mulch for my flower beds, which would gradually turn into compost and, again, tilled into the soil. To make it all look prettier, I would sometimes cover bare soil first with shredded leaves, then with a top layer of bark mulch, which I would buy from my garden center.

It is recommended to keep total mulch depth to three inches or less and to make sure that it doesn’t touch the base of tree trunks or shrubs since this can foment pests and disease.

If you don’t have a good place to mulch on your property, you might contact your local municipality to ask if it maintains a town compost pile for residents’ use. This is where those bags of leaves some residents leave at their curbside go to contribute to a large compost pile available to the public.

Remember, collected leaves cannot be burned. It is illegal to burn leaves anywhere in New York State. The smoke from burning leaves contains dangerous compounds and is harmful to the lungs, especially children and the elderly. Also, any outdoor fire can cause an accidental brush or house fire.

Why destroy such a valuable contribution to the garden and lawn?

Bill Primavera, while a publicist and journalist, is also a Realtor® associated with William Raveis Real Estate and Founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc. (www.PrimaveraPR.com). To engage the services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.