Leaves in my garden

Good Morning, Gardeners!

I put leaves in my garden to let them compost over the winter. I put a tarp over them, but the tarp kept blowing off....despite spikes put in the ground. The leaves are not breaking down. Is there anything that I am supposed to put down to help the leaves decompose more quickly?

Forgive me if this sounds stupid, but this is only my second year at gardening.

It's not the end of the world if they don't break down completely. But in the future (or now, if you're able), you could mow them w/ a mulching mower to chop them up smaller. Turning them under would also make things move along faster. I shut my chickens up in the garden with a good foot of leaves. Now you can barely see any leaves at all; they've been scratched and torn up completely.

If I put my five and four year old out there, I think I'd get the same effect. JUST kidding! LOL! I will get out there this weekend and turn them under. I don't have a mulching mower, just my lawn mower. I would use it, but there are so many leaves I'm afraid it would overwhelm my mower.

Thanks for the advice!

A regular mower should work fine, it is unlikely dry leaves would overwhelm it.
However, you might want to check and see if your mower can take a mulching blade.

The best thing to do with deciduous leaves is to make proper leaf mold, but it does take time. One-year-old leaf mold can serve as a mulch; two-year-old leaf mold is finer and can be used in growing media or dug in to lighten soil texture. Its nutrient rating is low, but it is valuable nonetheless.

The best results are obtained if you use some kind of container like bags or a big wire cage, but you can also just make piles. Put air holes in plastic bags if you use them. Collecting them when they are WET is preferred. It helps to chop them up with a mower, it does not have to be a mulching mower.

I read that feathers were completely compostable, so the last time I retired two old pillows, I took them out to the garden area and ripped them up. I have several types of compost arrangements, so I decided to put them in the rotating drum type. Try putting feathers into a drum in the wind. Anyway...that was in the fall and I don't think any of those feathers are a bit close to decomposing. The material in the drum is on the wet side, and the white feathers just seem to be coating the mass of nearly finished black compost.

Regular mowers chop leaves a little, but just back over your leaves with one pass and your regular mower becomes a great mulcher.

Lots of unmulched leaves on nonsandy soil can leave you with a slimy mess in spring.

Add some nitrogen IE blood meal and moisture. Make contact with soil and look out. Leaves are carbon and need nitrogen to get going faster. Look at the layering of compost. Leaves need grass or blood meal or cow manure. Nitrogen

I have an electric blower/ vacuum which mulches them nicely. I hoarded a lot of them in the fall for next summer's compost. I also mulched some beds with them in the fall.

I think those things are worth their weight in gold

Karen

noobiegardener. You didn't say what kinds of leaves. Oak leaves and others are slow to decompose. But shredding would make most leaves decompose faster. I don't have much lawn (feel it is a waste of time except for the nice green look setting off the colors of the flowers) but for what lawn I have have always used a mulching mower. I don't fertilize my little lawn areas either, just let the mulched grass go down into the grass.

DonnaS

kqcrna:
I did not know leaf blower/vacuums would break up the leaves. Can you tell me more about your machine? When I want to mulch leaves, I need my husband's help: first of all, I can't start the mower; second, we have a technique whereby I continually rake the leaves into a pile while he runs over them with the mulching mower. How easy is your blower/vacuum to use?

I have my leaves in a wire cage but they have not been broken up. (A lot of oak too)
I've been thinking about taking the trimmer and sticking it in there, but I'm a little scared to do so. Has anyone ever tried this? Am I crazy to think it might work?

missgarney: I have a Toro leaf blower/vacuum. The box says it mulches to a 10:1 ratio. It does indeed chop them up pretty small. I get a lot of pinoak leaves and mulching does hasten the composting process. It has an adjustable sling which goes over my shoulder to support the weight. It's not that heavy until the bag is rather full, then I just empty it out and start again.I am a smallish middle aged woman and have no problems using it. The leaves end up small enough that a lot fit into a large garbage can. I hoarded (3) 39 gal plastic garbage cans full as well as 2 piles and 2 lawn bags. I am saving them for summer composting when I find browns to be scarce. I think it's great.

Karen

To Karen,
re blower/vacuum:

I want one! Having failed to make the case to my husband for a chipper/shredder, I'm going to try for the leaf blower/vacuum. 10:1 sounds pretty good to me, and if I can do it myself, no leaf will be safe.

Miss Garney, fellow smallish middle-aged woman

Tell him that's what you want for Valentine's Day

I use a leaf vacuum that is just like a lawn mower that sucks up leaves, pine needles, pine and fir cones, and even small sticks. It turns them into mulch for the compost that takes very little time to get gold. My wife uses this one often cause it is very easy. It can be set to suck up all the debris in my driveway and leave all the gravel. I love it. It will also mulch sticks up to 1" in diameter. My wife is blessed with Ruma. Arthritis and loves it. I got it used at sears as a returned machine for $265.

You could reconsider your leaves as mulch instead of compost.
The leaves have kept your soil covered through the non-growing season to help prevent weeds.

In the spring when you plant, rake the leaves into the walking rows. When done planting move the leaves back as light mulch. Leave them heavy in the rows. As your plants grow you can rake the leaves around to serve as mulch. By the end of summer the leaves should be pretty much gone.

Jopyeweed has the best idea yet.I have tried everything,and it does take longer than one year to break down leaves,and if you use them in your garden ,and till them up good,they still rob your soil of nitrogen breaking down.We all have noticed the yellow tinge in the new veges,from the robbing of N.I find that spraying the leaves with amonium nitrate(34-0-0)fert. diluted in water will hasten the break down.It is increatably soluble,and will spray easily with a garden sparyer.You will also notice it speades up the break down of stumps and other wood.Mike

I do allow leaves to serve as mulch in my garden. You may be imagining a typical yard with trees and the typical amount of autumn leaves. But I live in the woods and I am interested in using the ground up leaves to make leaf mold for plants that like that kind of thing. I would not put much of it in my compost.

Man, I'd love a chipper. Last year I got a torch weeder for Valentines Day. Woo hoo.

I also want a torch weeder!! Some people have all the luck.

I think I've been in the compost too long!what is a torch weeder?

I have 2 chipper shredders, Leaf vacuum shredder, torch weeder, 3 rototillers, ....... and I'm in debt up to my neck. Just like the comercial
I have heard of using a garbage can and a string trimmer to mulch leaves. I origionally used a large electric company spool about 5' in diameter and placed rabbit mesh wire cover with a door acess. After shoveling in dry leaves I ran a 5 hp gas engine with a bicycle wheel hooked up to the enging and bolted to the spool and let it run for about 1/2 hour and the leaves turned to small pieces to be dumped in the compost.

I have heard, but have not tried it myself yet, that the mini cultivators are a great way to mix the compost pile. I am waiting for warm weather and am going to try it...

torch weeder aka flame weeder

It's like a blow torch for killing weeds. I've only seen propane-powered ones. I'd like to use one on the gravel driveway.

Last summer I used boiling water, which works, but takes a lot of trips back and forth into the house for the kettle.

I will never use RoundUp or other poison.

Thanks never heard of it ,but sounds like a good idea,except around dry grass,and leaves.

My torch has started many a grass fire here in Montana. When I'm working I have my hose ready to go in the area I'm burning. Sure no problem in drive but grasses and weeds explode here in summer. I burned the bottoms out of my neighbors newly planted trees 4 summers ago. We still are not friends. I keep trying.