Leaves are little storehouses of carbon (organic material) and trace minerals. This is something that is usually in short supply in most soils. They are too valuable to bag up and send to a landfill. There are lots of ways to use leaves that to take advantage of the benefits they can provide to your yard and garden. Leaves also are a source of trace minerals and elements like calcium and magnesium. A good healthy yard and garden is supported by a good composting system. A good compost mix includes a blend of nitrogen (green and moist items like grass and plants) and a source of carbon (brown items like leaves). When next summer comes and your garden/yard starts to generate green materials (grass clipping) and you wish to compost the grass clippings you will be short of carbon to make the best compost you can – so save your leaves now! Trees generate a lot of leaves and usually more than the average home can use in a compost system. Leaves not only are great sources of carbon but they are an excellent soil amendment. If leaves are added to soil they provide organic matter, a fantastic moisture retainer (they can hold between 3 – 5 times their weight in water) which helps soils retain up to 50% more moisture thus helping deal with dry periods, they add fluffiness (loft and tilth), and they connect you to a natural cycle.

Extra leaves can be used as mulch, added to a compost bin or turned into Leaf Mold.

Mulch is a layer of material that covers open ground in your garden and serves several purposes – protects the soil from erosion, regulates the soil temperature, retains moisture, suppresses weeds, and does this all for free. The best way to mulch is to apply some sort of organic material over the entire area (compost, fresh grass clipping, semi-rotted manure, seaweed, fully moulded leaves, etc) and cover with 2 –3 inches of leaves (or 1- one and a half inches of shredded leaves). Since leaves or leaf mold does such a great job of retaining moisture you need to ensure that the mulch does not cover plants and that there is a little space around the plant so that it avoid problems with pests and diseases.

Advantages of shredding – increases the rate of decomposition, increases surface area of the leaf, allows more moisture to pass through the mulch or molding pile since the leaf will not shed the rainfall or water application, and reduces volume of the leaves (3 bags of leaves ~ 1 bag of shredded leaves). Ways to shred leaves (wear the appropriate safety equipment gloves, hearing and eye protection) –

• Use a leaf shredder/mulcher machine (Earth's General Store has one)

• Use a lawnmower – pass over the leaves several times. If you are doing this to add organic material to your lawn then leave the mowed leaves where they fall but if you wish to collect them to use them somewhere else then mow them on the sidewalk or driveway since they will be easier to sweep/rake up

• Put the leaves in a garbage can and insert a weed eater machine and turn it on (best to have the lid covering most of the bin so less dust is thrown up.

• Also you can rake up the leaves in the gutter of a roadway since cars will crush the leaves and provide a very nice product. Avoid leaf litter that is obviously contaminated by oil or anti-freeze.

If nature gives you leaves – make mold! When you walk through a deciduous forest in the fall or spring you will notice a smell. It smells a little musty/earthy – but healthy. If you kneeled down and pulled back some of the leaf litter that is covering the ground you would see leaf mold (it would be the dark crumbly material that is closes to the actual ground and it would be damp). Nature makes leaf mold on a continuous basis because it knows what is good for itself. Leaf mold is a valuable ingredient in a healthy landscape and we can help nature along to make this wonderful material for our own use. Leaf mold is composting without adding the green component of a regular compost pile. Leaf molding is a slow and cold process (regular composting process is a hot process caused by the biological activity – hungry and very active bacteria) done by fungal activity.

The following is the process I started using many years ago and have tweaked it only a little over the years:

Erect a bin made of chicken wire stretched around some poles/posts (about 3-5 feet in diameter/square) and about 3-5 feet tall (chicken wire is usually in 3 foot wide rolls). I would then put in a couple of bags of dry leaves and then soak them down. I would then climb into the bin and stomp around (visions of wine making) for a while to crush the leaves a bit and to ensure that everything is getting damp. I would then add more leaves, more water, more stomping until the bin was full. Sometimes I would cover the bin with a sheet of plastic and remove it if it was going to rain and the bin was dry. To cut down on moisture lost you could line the inside of the chicken wire with cardboard or newspaper (cuts down on wind penetration and therefore drying affect of the wind).You don’t need to have a bin but it does contain the leaves from being blown about.

Moisture is very important since it helps the leaves decompose (dry materials resist decomposition). Moisture is necessary to support the fungus and other biota that causes the biological breakdown of the leaves. Dry leaves break down VERY slowly – think of the mummies in the Egyptian tombs. Also when items are damp during the winter they go through a freezing and thawing process that physically help in the decomposition of the leaves. Freezing and thawing physically break down the cellulose and lignin. I still do much the same thing but I tend not to do so much stomping and I let nature provide the water when possible. Some years I just do everything in plastic bags (I gather many from along the back alley – it seems you can never have enough leaves).All you do is put the leaves (shredded is best) into a plastic bag (do not use biodegradable or compostable plastic bags), poke holes in the bag with a garden fork and put some water into the bags. Let them sit there (turning the bag helps plus also adding water if it dries out). I find putting some weight on the bags really helps since the more intimate the leaves and moisture is the quicker the process is. When possible use a variety of leaves since they will each add a little bit different mixture of minerals to the end product. In Edmonton we don’t have too much of a variety of trees but all is good – in the city we have lots of trees.

No matter what process you use it will take at least 6 months to create some form of a useable product but in reality it will take about 12 – 36 months to create an excellent end product. You can use leaves that have not completely broken down as mulch or as a carbon source in your regular compost pile. Though leaf molding is a slow process it takes really no time from you after the initial shredding and/or piling/bagging.

It just require a space in your yard to work it’s magic. I love to use fully moulded leaves as a base layer of mulch. Leaf mold can replace your use of items like peat moss. It will hold as much or even more moisture than peat moss without the environmental cost that peat moss has (draining of peat bogs, bagging and transportation). Leaf mold can be added to your potting mix or added to existing potted plants to help with moisture retention. Leaf mold helps to retain moisture, reduces erosion, adds organic matter (food for soil organisms like worms), improves sandy and clay soils, and makes soil more friable.

 Compiled by Michael Kalmanovitch October 24^th, 2010