I’ve been hearing a lot lately about #leaveyourleaves. This time of year memes and videos are all over social media. But is leaving your leaves where they fall a good idea? Is this the best use of this precious resource?
I don’t think it is a good idea to leave your leaves, but I understand the sentiment behind the idea. The last thing we should be doing with our fall leaves is bagging them up and sending them to the landfill. But leaving them where they fall isn’t a good idea either and in this video, I give you 4 alternatives to sending your leaves to the landfill.
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Here’s the link to join the Fall Gardening Tasks Mini-Course:
https://onlinegardeningschool.com/p/fall-garden-tasks-mini-course
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1. Leave the Leaves only in undeveloped areas
2. Compost
3. Make Leaf Mold
4. Trench Composting
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Learn more about composting here:
Learn more about Leaf Mold Here:
Learn more about Trench Composting here:
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:15 Don’t send leaves to the landfill
2:24 Overwintering bugs? Is this good?
3:30 A layer of Mulch
4:50 Adds Carbon Back to the Soil?
6:00 Here’s what to do instead
6:10 Leave in undeveloped areas
6:40 Compost
7:40 Make Leaf Mold
8:57 Trench Composting
11:35 Fall Gardening Tasks Mini Course
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24 Comments
I am already subscribed for your videos. 😁 Cheers! and Thank you my friend
So what do you think of the idea of leaving your leaves? I'm not a big fan, but I do have some ideas to keep your fall leaves out of the landfill. Let me know what you think!
I multch them into grass and put layers in my garden. Box gardens they work fantastic in them for filling in space . I put cardboard over them w leaves n cuttings and my compost . Works great . I dont let them sit on lawn in bunches, that is bad for lawn
My husband mows over the leaves and puts them in the compost pile. I prefer that method the best since over time leaves breakdown and provide great mulch.
I live on the edge of a national Forest and I have a ton of trees and leaves. I’ll drive over them with the lawnmower and purchased a leaf catcher bag and then throw them on top of my flowerbeds or just leave the some of the mulch leaves on the grass or on the property to burn at a later date. I can’t leave this many leaves on the grass. I’ll explain why. I live in a very humid and wet environment. The leaves are dry now but when they get wet, they are very slick to walk on. They also smother the grass . Because of the humidity and moisture they could create a mold or fungus situation. So the person who suggested leaving the leaves I’d like to know how many leaves fall on their property, where they’re located, etc.
I've trench composted my leaves – with a twist. I first mow over them to chop them up. Then I put them in the trench along with any other vegetable scraps and other plant matter, and mix in a bit of soil. Cover it with an inch or so of soil and leave the rest on either side of the trench. In the early Spring, I plant my seed potatoes in the trench, pushing them down into the soil and covering them with a bit more soil. As the season progresses, I use the extra soil to hill them up. When the potatoes are done, most are actually in the composted leaves in the trench, and since it was so loose, the potatoes are able to get really big and you almost don't need a digging fork to harvest them!
I keep seeing memes that say the leaves have the eggs of the butterflies, fireflies and moths.
Thanks Rick 😎👍
I'm in zone 6 and for 30 years I've been running my mulching mower around in the fall and chopping up big leaves into little pieces. In the spring all those little pieces have disappeared and the grass soil has been enriched. The Michigan State School of Agriculture highly recommends this practice of mulching.
I love leaves. I run the lawn mower over them and collect them in the bag on my lawn mower and then dump the mulched grass and leaves on my raised beds. Do this every year. And if more leaves fall I rake them and put them in a circular wire fence for the winter. Then come spring I use them on the bottom of my pots as a filler before adding soil.
Hi Rick. Love your channel and took your year-round gardening course this past summer, and it was hugely helpful. I saw this video, though, and wanted to clarify something that I think is incredibly important for people to understand. The animals you've highlighted as pests – snails, slugs, etc – are actually a critical winter food source for wildlife, including birds whose numbers have taken a huge hit thanks to habitat loss, pesticide overuse, and climate change. Additionally, beneficial garden allies like luna moths, great spangled fritillaries, woolly bear caterpillars, salamanders, gnats, and spiders all overwinter in leaf litter… A major point of #leavetheleaves is to give these critical members of the food web an opportunity to survive the season so they can fill whatever role they're meant to fill in the year to come. Gently moving the leaves to a more convenient location is a workable alternative if you can't leave them where they fall, but mulching or mowing over them as some in this thread suggest is as disastrous as bagging the leaves and putting them in a landfill. Composting or settling them in a leaf bin, as you suggested, is another workable alternative. The main point is to just leave the leaves whole and as undisturbed as possible, to allow the beings nesting among them to live out their lives and fill whatever vital role they play in nature. Thanks for all the wonderful information you provide and the great work you do, I so appreciate it!
I left the leaves last year and it killed a naturally green lawn full of beautiful violets and we had diseased plants from mold which it said was from the leaves. It is quite wet fall to spring, zone 8.
Honda mulching mower. I start blades high and just keep going till I can blow it into the Garden beds 🛌
I rototill the leaves and grass in the veggie garden. Now our soil is rich black with many earth worms.
Should you leave roots of plants in the garden and just till them in in the spring
our city makes them into compost in fact they have a separate pick up for the yard waste, like leaves.
Maybe your wording … Other in steed of Better … would have been more widely received.
Dear Lord, get to the freakin facts. You talk to much
I unsubscribed.
6 minutes of exasperated, melodramatic sighs. Lecturing in a condescending manner.
This is all common knowledge if you garden, but it can also be found elsewhere on YouTube, and on better, less arrogant channels.
Reminds me of coach Brian in Everybody Loves Raymond. “Okay?»
If you like fire flies leave some leaves
I think most cities and town come around with a leaf pickup sadly ours has a certain date and it's too early.We mow ours and mulch into grass .I now have three compost barrels so the extra leaves I'm going to save in big contractor bags…hopefully hubby will mulch those for me first..leaves gathered too thick is just still there in spring in a muck mess…
Okay you're right about the pest but I got something that'll take her all those damn tests two drops of neem oil one drop Dawn dishwashing liquid spray down all the leaves first the floor then the leaves I drenched it all the way around I've never had problems not like this but if I just leave it like by itself oh yeah best believe those bugs will attack
Question? By using the trench method will pests still infest my garden come spring? I examined my leaves and there are pin size holes? Thanks
Your thoughts please, I’m making two 3’x6’1’ raised beds, layer of card board on top of grass 2to3 inches leaves mixed with twigs and small branches from my yard. Then 6” of garden soil and a small amount of homemade compost and topping off with potting soil mixed in with couple inches of the garden soil. Naturally will add fertilizer etc also. Thanks in advance