Autumn heralds a round of free harvests bought on by nature’s abundance. The colourful leaves that once adorned the trees in our garden are falling and with it creating a fabulous opportunity to create gardener’s black gold!
In a sustainable woodland culture the leaves from the trees fall to the ground where they break down slowly to form a lush carpet of water retentive organic material, harbouring all manner of beneficial activity which stimulates the natural environment.
In most gardens we don’t want the whole garden covered in leaves decaying slowly, so we can collect them up – storing them in a large pile ready for re-distribution once the breaking down process is complete, thus mirroring the natures own efforts. When clearing the leaves don’t be too particular – a light scattering on the grass will soon be taken down by worms and help with the health of your lawn. Be sure to leave plenty under shrubs and hedges too for creating a natural winter habitat for creatures like hedghogs.
Once collected, the leaves can be left to do their own thing. I keep them separate from general compost as the method of decomposition is quite different. Compost, which is high in nitrogen breaks down aerobically with the action of bacteria. Leaves by contrats which are predominantly carbon break down significantly slower, anaerobically.
Leaves collected ready for breaking down
Leaf mould is low in nutrients but is an excellent soil ameliorant. It promotes water retention meaning less need to water and also with worm activity promoting healthy soild for your prize plants. Leaf mould is one of natures very best free gifts and now is the time to be collecting them up to make use of this wonderful sustainable resource
Tags: benefit · garden design · gardening · grow your own · money saving · Plant · Success · sustainable · value2 Comments
I love collecting leaves for leaf mould it reminds me of my childhood when we had 3 huge beech trees in the garden and would spend autumn days raking the leaves into huge piles and then jumping into them.
Hi Helen
Yes leaves are great for bringing out the child in everyone. I used to love running through heaps of horse chestnut leaves kicking them in to the air.
They also remind me of the abundance of nature and how important they are in our general ecology. I’m a firm believer that we need to start changing slowly to a rather different way of sustaining ourselves – so using what materials occur naturally is a great place to start!
Thanks Tim