Super Fast Leaf Composting Trick
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ธ.ค. 2017
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We show you our new method to make leaf compost/mould that will give you a jump start on building your garden soil. This method is an easy and fast trick for composting your leaves.
We found that this method is easier than using your lawn mower for several reasons. First, a push mower has a small bag. We can do 3 times as much in the trash can. Second, when you mow leaves, you are sucking up grass and weed seeds by the handfuls. We do not want those in our leaf mulch.
We love that Ryobi string trimmer and have had it for 6 years only having to replace the fuel line.
Ryobi 4-cycle trimmer: amzn.to/2H9njSO
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I laughed so much when you chopped up the leaves with your weedeater. It's like a garden version of an immersion blender.
Lol. Good comparison
It was a good idea! I have a WORX mulcher which chops them really finely, but using a weed eater is a good idea and most people have one of them.
@@joseeallyn9950; Those mulchers don't seem to last for some reason. I only got one season out of mine, and I love ground up leave for the garden.
We mow over our leaves, then we rake them again, and mow over them again. We do this 3 or 4 times to the same pile until the leaves and grass are so fine, they almost look like instant soil. We use them immediately as soil. It works beautifully! We have 7 acres with 6 acres of forest. Lots and lots of leaves. When you wet the mowed leaves, it honestly looks like instant soil.
Bet this makes both the worms and the birds happy!
I do that. Some I throw over the garden plot and leave in the winter. Just mow once. Then in the spring I turn over in the ground. It controls weeds and is a great amendment.
I dig a trench in the garden and burry the leaves that I have mowed come spring they are into the dirt well blended
saves time and work
Do you mower on multch or bag?
This works so well! Learned by accident using my leaf vacuum which mulched the leaves that I put in a plastic trash bag and left sitting for a while. I am so happy you made this video to share with others. Thank you!
You're welcome.
Wow! So many great ideas here! So much resourcefulness!
I’ve taken out most of my lawn since I live in Colorado and we’re in a drought. Since I don’t have a lot of lawn anymore, I don’t have a need for a high powered mower-I have a rotary push mower.
So what I tried this year was picking up dozens and dozens of bags of leaves from neighbors and then-sitting on them and squishing them in the bags! Don’t laugh! (Okay you can laugh, it is a little funny. I have to do something to justify the 20 pounds I put on during the pandemic!)
Anyway, leaves aren’t super shredded, but they do get more crunched down and I can fit more in my corrals.
Thanks for the great video! And I loved the comments!
You're welcome. Glad we could help.
After you have thoroughly chopped up this year's leaves, I recommend mixing a few scoops of inoculated leaf mold from last year's batch before putting it into the bag. This should add moisture, and have most of the decomposing constituents already at work within it to further speed up the process.
Excellent thought. Thanks for watching.
I did this and it worked amazing. Put the compost in the garden yesterday
Awesome!
This is genius. I so happen to have access to a weed wacker, but not a lawn mower, and this idea never dawned on me until now. Thanks for the video!!
I am glad the video was helpful. Thanks for watching.
I use leaf mold/mulch every year. Make the process hands off by perforating barrels with 1/2" holes every 6 inches all the way around the outside of the barrels with a few holes in the bottom. Add your shredded leaves and any other garden clippings, water it once a month or so, keeping it covered. 60-90 days and you have fantastically fungal goodness.
Great video, love to see people using their brain. In England we have something called the soil association, it is dedicated to improving the quality of soil which like so many issue of today like climate change or the bees and other pollinators are very important that people become aware of and do there bit to help, 10/10 mate. Just a little tip, I was collecting leaves the other day, i used a big plastic gorilla bucket on its side, flick the leaves into it then tip that into wheelbarrow or other vessel, means you can pick up a whole lot more leaves than just with hand and rake and saves a lot more bending down. Keep composting..
Thanks for your comment Alistair. I usually don't pick up the leaves like that as it was just a quick demo for the video.
Do you, composting is great & has been done the same way forever! AT LEAST WITH THE SAME OUT COME & "Way,Way,Way Longer" than these studies & climate warming idealist pushing they're college professors Agenda. Keep Home Steading, but screw all the battery powered blah, blah ,blah Make America Weaker & Weaker Communist BS)))! These people never owned there own land nor lived off anything but scientific studies from there computers, classes, & ideology "AWARD WINNING"😉books🤣!!! GREAT VID DON'T CHANGE A THING👍👍!!!!!!!
Loved seeing the 🐶 running in this video❤️🌹🍓
He loves to run and run and run.
I'm inspired. I had a tough year last year because our newest garden area is mostly clay. I did put a layer of wood chip mulch the previous fall, and the fungal material that developed was phenomenal, but not quite enough to keep the clay from compacting after numerous rains. This fall and winter I plan to do a lot of leaf amendments.
Awesome. Glad we could inspire. Good luck with that clay.
Get a trailer load of sand and till into the soil.
It will break up the clay and lighten the soil.
Work smarter not harder, hire a soil tiller for a day to work the sand in.
It will do a better job than a human in a 10th of the time.
Great way to build concrete
I use a different method for my leaves. I plant winter rye grass in mid Sept. and when the leaves fall I put a metal cover over the discharge chute on my riding mower, then I use a yard sweeper pulled behind the mower while I chop the leaves and mow the grass at the same time, the grass clippings get mixed with the chopped leaves. I dump all the grass and leaves in a big pile around my cement mixer. Then I put some stones in the mixer and load the mixer with leaves and turn it on, this pulverizes the chopped leaves into small pieces and I add this to my garden and flower beds and also mix some with my homemade potting soil. this method is a work saver for me.
I’ve done this it works great, my leaves were a tad wet when I put them in, but did this by accident, I was just lazy and didn’t burn my leaves. Fantastic boo-boo
Just chop them up and put them directly onto your flower and shrub beds. You don’t have to get the leaves ready any more than that. Put the worms to work immediately. Worm castings are better than leaves so get those worms busy! Thanks for sharing the video.
Good video. I've been doing this since I saw this video years ago. One thing I've started to do in the past few years is to spread those leaves not so thickly as I used to. Just enough to cover my raised bed 2 inches thick. I do this just after I lightly work-in what is left of any straw mulch that I used in the garden. I also lightly sprinkle fresh grass clipping on top of those leaves. IN the spring, I work that stuff into the soil a few inches. I also go out and get farm/ranch-produced compost (cow manuer and other good stuff) at $45 for 1000 lbs and put that (about an inch thick) on top of everything about a month before I plant. JUst before planting, I work the top few inches again to mix everything. This year, my tomatoes are incredible! Yes, I did use some tomato food for them as well. But the tomatoes are the highlight of my garden which as a whole, is the besst I've ever had (meaning, you build-up the quality of your soil over the years). Thanks for the video!
Thank you. Glad it is working so well for you.
I have bad hearing so I use subtitles and it was so funny when you used your weed eater cuz it said music playing lol. You’re awesome. Thank you for this. I go up the mountain trails and bring back a backpack full of leaves because I live in a desert mountain town. Thank you so much for this.
So glad it was helpful and that our subtitles worked perfectly. Thanks for watching and for your comment.
Pro tip: just go into the forest and rake back the top layer of whole leaves and use a stiff garden rake to break up the crumbly leaf mold then use a flimsy leaf rake to gather it into a pile. Use a shovel to put it into 5 gallon buckets. It looks kinda like dark rich potting soil but it'd just decomposed leaves. It will make your soil dark, moist and full of nutrients. Added bonus is it doesn't cost money. Just good ol labor.
This is a brilliant idea! I'm using some leaves I scrounged from my area to make mulch but never thought to take a garden rake with me to the little forested clearings near by, I could definitely find some of that there!
'Pro tip' has now been made illegal to use.. My pro tip/ just the tip = urine.. the nitrogen will get it going faster
@@ahealthkit2745 be careful and don't go into the forest by yourself though.
Oh man we just got one of those leaf vacuums and it sucks them up and chops them up super tiny for you! I just got several bags finished in 15 minutes. It’s a gardeners dream come true, highly recommend.
That is a huge blessing. We couldn’t afford that at the time we made this video.
I’m pretty new too gardening this year being the first but I’ve always liked the out doors recently I’ve been having a lot of out the box ideas after watching information videos like this around gardening wild fires and so on now one of the thoughts has been around trees needing nutrients just like every other plant and how we clear leaves from lawns and foot paths but don’t mulch them down and give them back to the trees as well as using them to feed out gardens
I am not worried about it.
You’re on the right path, keep thinking and being creative.
Yes you’re removing some nutrients, but soil also needs organic matter and minerals to be complete. Leaves are mostly a Carbon source.
This is a great video. He’s referring to this as a soil ‘amendment’, so it’s part of the bigger picture of soil. Also kudos for wearing eye protection.
“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
Many people pay to remove the leaves and grass clippings (remove nutrients) only to pay again to fertilize (put the nutrients back).
Thanks. Exactly what I needed to know. Thanks for showing how you chop up the leaves. That never occurred to me
You're welcome
Nice.
I did mine on the driveway with my mower and reduced it to almost powder from several bins (let them dry on the pavement). Then bagged like you said and wow, like spreading powder.
In the end, it all works, just do it is the main idea.
Ciao
Very cool. Thanks for sharing
i have 2 ztr mowers w/bagger and in the fall i use the mulchers (gator)which bags 1/2 and mulch the other half. i put the bagged leaves in the leaf pile with some lime and water. it breaks down pretty well in the winter but i still mix it with old horse manure. it makes a great potting and garden soil pretty quickly. all you need is a bagger and some horses. have a geart summer
That is so brilliant, saved me from buying a shredding machine, and binning a whole load of leaves every single time , thanks
You're welcome.
I mulched with mulching blades on my lawn mower and it did a better chopping.
Thank you.
How did you then pick the leaves up once they were mulched? The point of this method was to also get pure leaf mold compost with no grass or weed seeds.
I like the idea of using the weed eater to mulch the leaves. Very creative!
Thank you
What's the hurry? Judging by the volume of leaves you have, if you start a new corral every year then after about the third year you'll have a fresh corral of leaf mould to spread every year after that. Layering the leaves with garden lime and hosing it down each layer speeds up the process and balances the ph. Also, if you're putting your corrals that close to the trees you need an impermeable base (e.g. black plastic or roofing iron) otherwise the tree roots will infiltrate up into the leaf mould before you're ready to spread it.
Do you think if i mix it every week, roots will try to go into my pile? i have no choice of having where i have it and i know my silver maple trees are so vorace.. whereever i try to put something rich, they pick into it.. They even when into a 2 feet high bed ..I believe even putting a plastic, they will go into the cracks.. but a compost pile, i can maybe mix it every now and then.. and roots.. wont notice it?? :))
I’m going to start my garden next spring so I’ll try this method on the weekend
Great
We lay dwn a tarp and make small mountains of leaves around the edges of the tarp then run it over w/ a push mower w/ the shoot always facing the tarp :) Then just transfer the leaves from the tarp to the beds, landscaping or compost. We like it 'bout 6-8 in. then in late summer we add a few inches of grass clippings or sprinkle on some blood meal or cottonseed meal then repeat w/ leaves in the fall. When our kids were lil we told them putting the leaves on was "putting the plants blankets on for the winter" lol
Very cool. You have a good method as well. Thanks for sharing.
That is incredibly clever! Thanks for sharing it - much appreciated…
You're very welcome!
What a brilliant way to chop leaves. I recently dumped leaves directly in garden and mowed over them, but that creates so much dust
Thank you. Glad it was helpful.
I use my mower, and my much beds are 4 ft wide , 30 inches deep and 50 ft long ..I got lots of this good stuff and lots of clay. I also brought in sand, my garden is fantastic.
Thank you for sharing your idea. Seems so many replies want to put you down. That's ashame folks can't or WON'T say thk you and keep their condescending thoughts to their self!!! Good Job!!
Thank you for your thoughtful comment Georgia.
Hating is the only relevance they have in life. Miserable, zero self esteem. Pain and suffering of others including that of animals excites them though.
I'm going to have to try it this Fall.
we do the black bag trick. about 100 bags a year , throw a piece of dried cow poop in every bag, wet it with the hose and tie the bag off for 6 months and wow....best compost weve ever seen....we are in Panama ( country) it has made a huge increase in garden yields...thanks!
Awesome! The black bag trick has served us well. Happy gardening!
You are correct about worms breaking down leaf mould fast. I raise Euros and African night crawlers in it. I use a Sun Joe to break up my leaves which when they are damp almost become leaf mould. I then add coffee from my local coffee shops, wet it down really good and you can have leaf mould in less than two months. The coffee heats it up whether in a black bag or a plastic tote. Good luck.
Thanks Catherine.
About 10 years ago I bought an electric Black&Decker leaf shredder/vacuum. The only complaint I have with it is the bag is small but it shreds wonderfully. We were putting them in the garden but in the future I'll do this bag trick to add to it.
Cool. Good luck with your gardening.
I collect my grass clipping and mix them 1:1 with the fallen leaves and now them together with a push mower. It's ready to shift in 3 to 5 weeks, or faster with a compost starter.
I'm trying to start composting leaves. We raked up a bunch and piled them up and I put a small layer of our red sandy clay dirt on them and wet it down. I'm also going to throw a little bit of nitrogen fertilizer on them to help compost. I don't have access to manure yet. Hoping to have chickens this year to help with the nitrogen side. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching. Hope you get that composting quickly. We are also hopefully getting some chickens "soon".....next spring.
Use urine. It is free and local.
Add spent coffee grinds.
You can use vegetable scraps also. Just not as much as the leaves. 3:1 ration of "browns" and "greens"
Gerard Sammah yeah I’ve heard that. I use those little Keurig things at home.
Excellent tip thanks for sharing. I've already been doing leaves but not in the black bag.
Glad it was helpful.
I never thought of that use for my string trimmer. It's a cool trick.
Thanks.
thank you for responding to my question. you would really be surprised by the amour of people who do not.
You're welcome
Thank you ! We’ve been looking for other options for our leaves other than burning them !!!
Cool. You're welcome.
Breaking Browder Farm so happy to read this. People need to stop burning and let nature do her job thank u.
OMG I just cant believe u gave me this chopping idea...awesome.....Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
I have to say that was clever thinking with the weed wacker! I usually use the lawnmower and the side chute, then go over it one more time with the bagger.
We use a bagger on the mower and it chops up the leaves nicely. I make leaf mold mixed with my compost, but I also put a 10-12 inch layer of leaves mixed with grass clippings (for nitrogen) on each of my raised beds every fall. It breaks down a little over the winter, but it also acts as mulch for most of the growing season, helping to control weeds and retain soil moisture.
I used to cram my car full of those black bags, from wealthy neighborhoods.
I slit each bag, and threw them in a pile.
The next spring, I laid them out on top of a path of newspapers.
Then opened them stem to stern and pushed the compost onto the beds, one new, and the other new- and it weighted down the back plastic. Instant access to both beds, and no weeds in the paths.
If I wasn't expanding an area, I'd go back over the other paths and beds and refreshen them.
Now I collect them from my street, put them in an old foundation and water them, turn 'm, and add peletized lime, once I start seeing mold when I turn the pile.
No plastic, but the occasional banana peel gets added.
It's beautiful stuff.
Nice!
@@CountryLivingExperience Thanks!
I've tried the weedeater chopping thing. It works great! I used a smaller battery powered weedeater which looked easier than the big old gas one. Oh, it's less messy if the lesves are dry.
Awesome! Thanks for the comment.
I used to do the pile method and then what you did, but when we got a new lawnmower with a bag catcher, I would just mow over the leaves and empty the bags onto the garden beds going into winter.
I didn't want to use the lawn mower because I did not want grass seeds in it.
Just because I peep all the comments saying what you should have done better 😂 I'm gonna jump on here to say, thank you. This makes so much sense for me. I already have a trash can and weed eater. 😁
Thank you for the kind comment. The other commenters don't know what they are talking about.
I have been doing the trash can chopping but I just throw in my leaf compost area. Works great
Awesome!
I have large oat trees 🌳 on my property. I use a lawn tractor 🚜 and mower to run over the leaves 🍃 several times to mulch them into tiny pieces. I then rake them into my compost pile 10'x20'. I use a water timer to automatically water 💧 the pile 2x a week to keep it moist and speed up the composting process.
I have a ryobi weedwacker.I use the blades instead of the string.I wack them really small add a little compost to them.I have a blue 55gal drum that had water in it.Also have two BLACK yard garbagebags.I drilled holes all over the drum and made holes in the garbagebags.Breaksdown even faster and there are a lot of WORMS in all three.I have two gardenplots at Floyd Bennett Field Gardens Association in Brooklyn,NY.Yes ORGANIC.
Awesome. Nice to find someone else who does it the same way.
I place the leaves which are a lot but small size around my other trees, and stump them with my feet, I know it is not the ideal... but it is very simple to do.. since they are crushed they do not fly away.
That dog is always zooming by in your videos. :-)
He has been doing it for years and years now. Can't slow him down.
Great idea. Try using a leaf blower vacuum with a bag on it. Just vacuum up and mulch at the same time and then dump it in your trash bag. Husqvarna has one that has a metal blade in the mulcher.
I have one. It’s small. This holds a lot more.
Hi, I'm a new subscriber and wanting to learn more on gardening and and best ways to make my own compost, thank you for sharing your video🙂
You're welcome. I am actually working on a new leaf video today. I have others in my archives as well like this one.......th-cam.com/video/pN4f4hqR68w/w-d-xo.html
Very informative and will follow your tips. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
I'm gonna try this!
THANK YOU!
You’re welcome
Our lawn mower has a mulching feature. We just run it over the leaves and it tears them up and spits them into the grass catcher bag. From there, we dump them into our raised beds, water them down and allow mother nature to do her thing. By spring planting time, we only have to go out to the beds, turn the new soil and with a few amendments, we are good to go. I love using what nature gives us.
Just Subbed. Great stuff! Thanks for sharing. We are learning so much here @RidgeLife. Have a Blessed Day!!!
Thank you. We appreciate it. God bless y'all!
For a lot of leaves, a riding lawn tractor can cut them up a lot faster. I also mix in grass clippings for nitrogen.
Thats my method. I also throw down the leaves I have mowed and caught in the bagger and run over them a second time, then place either in the compost bin or over the garden bed in the fall.
Speed this up quicker by adding a shovelful of garden dirt, water and construction lime. Close the bag with twist tie. Mix it up. Put it down and roll 1/2 turn every week or two. Nice compost in 6-8 weeks.
What a good idea using a weedwacker to break them down. Thanks 😁
Thanks
Our leaf blower does the same. With a quick change it becomes a bagged vacuum and chops them up then we just dump the bag attachment contents back into a trash bag, pile or the garden bed then water. If we do the garden bed then we have to lightly cover with a heavier mulch or the wind will still scatter finely chopped materials even with watering.
I have now purchased one of those blower/mulchers.
I did the weed whacker trick and realized the lawn mower one is so much faster! I rake my leafs into shallow line piles and the mower shreds and snorts it all up!
I have a leaf blower that also has a vacuum/mulcher function. Shredding the leaves works great. Mowing them works even better (especially stubborn oak leaves). :)
I do have a leaf blower with vacuum now. Mowers don't work because it is not easy to pick them up and you get grass seed in the pure leaf mold compost.
@@CountryLivingExperience grass seed? Only if you're cutting grass that's gone to seed...
@@CountryLivingExperience I ran over the leaves until they were fine, then raked and swept the leaves up. Did great. :)
I love your border Collie, beautiful!
I like this idea, maybe I would add a blade if mine takes one. I dont have a mower because I am in Florida on a sand lot, and the leaf blower/ vacuum we bought makes such a mess with the sand storm it creates. So, I'm cool with the garbage can idea. Thanks for sharing it!!! Not everyone has grass you know!
A blade on the weed trimmer is a great idea. Glad this was helpful.
I was literally thinking of doing exactly this but I'm checking for a better method lol.
This is clever, thanks for the tip!!
Thanks. Glad it was helpful!
Just use a lawnmowers with a mulching Blade and a bagger, works a lot better and so much faster!!
I disagree. Here is why. The bag on the back of a push mower is very small. I actually tried the two methods. The amount I can get in that can is 3 times as much. Add in the time to walk behind the mower and the distance traveled. Unless you are fortunate enough to have a bagger on your riding mower...then my argument is null.
Frank M may even help make a faster spoken video too me thinks..
For folks like me, who use a weekly yard and lawn service, I don't have the need of a lawnmower. Or the weed eater I had to borrow last fall to chop up my leaves exactly how the videographer did. Beautifully minced leaves that'll break down in no time. But I do do my own weeding... with my new flamethrower.
Awesome! We just did a flame weeder video this past week. th-cam.com/video/Wzpz9VzTRj0/w-d-xo.html
If you have a mulching mower, it shouldn't have a bag... My Kubota mower doesn't. Pile your leaves in the bin and put the mower in with them. Maybe youll walk 15 steps around that penned in area???
Nicely done, I'm excited to do the same 👍
Thank you
ill help
I knew I liked this when I heard The Decemberists playing
Cool
Thanks for the great info! Subscribed!
Awesome, thank you!
My lawn bower makes the leaves muck smaller, don't have to keep bending down to fill drum, much safer for your eyes and less dust to breath in.
@Joan Sullivan. Geo bins? Sounds great. Ok imma get one for my small Florida yard with large trees😁& bamboo. Thank you.
My leaf blower also
picks up leaves, and
shreds them into its
own collection bag.
But if you only have a
Strimmer , what a
good idea , to increase
the surface area of
the leaves.
I also have a shredder,
but it's very noisy :
I don't want to disturb
the neighbours !
🇬🇧😊🌿💕🌿🌱😊🇬🇧
🇬🇧😊💕🇺🇲🌿🇬🇧😊🇺🇲
Best trick is a gallon bucket of water, half cup of molasses add in 2 cups of uncooked rice. Distribute and mix in. Mold crawls everywhere and compost them in extremely short order.
You put the rice in the cup of molasses and water? Or sprinkle rice on compost and water with the molasses
But why? Seems like a lot of bother and quackery. But I'm guessing it won't do any harm.
I think you are speeding up fermentation with lactoacidobacillus like in bokashi. I'm doing the same with my kitchen scraps bucket too. And then burying it in the yard under soil or in plant pots after two weeks. The worms are loving it. You can check it after a few days they're already moved in.
Jeff tacker, check out bokashi composting method. I just found out and started doing it right away with homemade bokashi bran or shredded cardboard.
Rice... nice.
I like the weed eater in the can method for breaking down the leaves. I was thinking I have to fo out and buy a leaf shredder. Nice
Thank you
I had a friend who would pin down a tarp big enough to rake all the leaves onto and then plow a push mower into them until they were reduced to shreds, that technique resulted in a very fine mulch in no time at all. I just pick up the leaves in my lawn mower bag, and mow often in the fall, which has the added benefit of mixing in some grass clippings, which brings the carbon-nitrogen ratio closer to the ideal of 25-30:1. (leaves are about 60:1, grass is 20:1)
Thank you. That is a good technique too. I wanted pure leaf mould compost however.
Great video. I was thinking of using a blower / shredder vac and then remove the contents into a black plastic bag.
Thank you
Starting mine now! So many leaves 🍁! Thank you for showing me how!
Awesome! Thanks for watching.
I agree that ff you use a bagging lawnmower and even breaks them up into smaller pieces. I do this all the time. Rack them into a pile and just keep running over them. I even do this to collect the leaves that fall on my street.
Read my other responses on why I didn't use a bagger.
Hey nice video I live on almost 3 acres, and I usually use the tractor to mow the leaves into the shrubs...im figuring how I can make use of the leaves i have alot of missing grass think I will mow them into the patches instead and throw seeds by the spring time
Cool. Thanks for watching. We have a ton of leaves ready to be picked up already. Winter came early for East Texas.
Use the vacuum attachment on a leaf blower to pick them up. The impeller in the blower works wonders on them.
My wife just bought me one. I will do a review on it as soon as my leaves dry out.
rc3291
I run them through the leaf vac twice. Empty the bag into a garbage can. When it's full, vac them back out of the can and empty bag onto compost pile. The pieces are so small, they're almost soil as soon as you wet them.
@@SusanBaileyAmazingEstate I use a leaf vac too! You're right, the bits are finely shredded and make excellent compost!
They're also great for breaking down dry manure chunks so you can mix it into your compost more evenly, one of my old deceased friends used to use one to make substrate for portobellos and would mince pounds upon pounds of it monthly.
Great info. 🌸Thank you🌸
Glad it was helpful. Thanks.
I use a Scag zero turn mower, connected to a Agri-Fab leaf vacuum collected into its 32 square foot trailer then back it into a mulch bin.
I live in southeast texas and we have mostly pine trees here. Can the dry brown pine needles be used in place for leaves?
There is a big debate on whether pine needles make acidic soil. I saw a video from Alberta CA that tested pine forest soil and did not see a difference in acidity. That said, Deciduous tree leaves break down far faster and make a better soil on my opinion.
Very good idea
Thank you
Great idea!! I have a TON of grape leaves! Now I'm wondering, why didn't they ever think of sticking the weed wacker in with the leaves? Now I'm really excited for a spring garden! LOL thanks for sharing...
Glad you found the video helpful.
That dogo is lovin life!!🤣
Every day
We also do the same thing but add a dusting of Azomite dust and some Leonhardite Along with very little (1/4 cup) of molasses per bag. Then we stack then on the south side of the barn for a months Then we use this to work into new boxes or top dress growing plants.
Cool
You can buy a leaf mulching device that allows bags to be attached to the outlet.
Hi...when you pull out weeds from the garden what do you usually do with them?if you throw them in the compost or on other dirt will they grow back since the roots are still attached to them?thanks
As long as you shake most of the dirt from them and lay them on their side, they should not reestablish themselves. We usually just throw them in our walk paths.
Thank you very much
That's a good idea with the weed eater! 👍👍👏👏👏🎉💯
Thank you
Thanks for this tip
Hope it's helpful.
I appreciate your dog doing laps throughout the video.
Thanks. He does that in all my videos.
I’ve been doing this for 5 years now I use my push mower with a bagger I collect the leaves that have been Mulched pretty good dump them in a pile in the back yard. Once I’ve done the whole yard I take the bagger off my push mower and have the mulch piece on my mower and I then remulch the already mulched leaves. Turns it into a fine powder. Leave it over the winter and it’s soil by spring. The soil is a pitch black. I plan to put a garden there some day but it’s a Low spot and I’m trying build it up there once it’s built up I’ll fill it and make a garden. Then move onto another spot
Cool. The reason we did it this way is because we wanted it to be free of weed and grass seeds. Did you find that yours had a lot of grass seed that sprouted?
Country Living Experience: A Homesteading Journey
It actually looks like a Barron waste land. No grass growing what so ever. Just straight dirt and leaves.
Ah, I understand. We have a lot of nasty hay type grasses down here.
I use a lawn mower and with greens (grass ) a little water and sugar or warm old coke.
Thanks for sharing
My pleasure
I contacted a nearby town that does leaf collection and had them deliver straight to my property (11 truck loads). It saves them from paying to dump at the landfill. FYI...you will get some unwanted debris, but it's worth it to me.
That is awesome. I wish there was something like that around me. I am blessed with a lot of trees luckily.
I paid around eight dollars a twiggy bag for five bags of what they label top soil at Lowe's before I learned I could get a cubic yard of compost from a local recycling center. I bought a truckload for eight bucks and it is high grade stuff with not one twig from Lee's Landing Recycling Center in Charleston, SC.
S Kesegich you will also get unwanted poisons and pesticides with it.
S Kesegich great idea! Must share this one. I have a raised bed 4x 12 x 3 feet deep. Last fall I got maintenance to put a thick layer in.
Just can’t wait to plant ,
That's what were doing too!!! It's AWESOME!!! There's also an app for that now, called LeafDrop or something like that. Pretty cool! We just saw some guys trimming the trees by the electric lines and said hey, you want to drop those by our house? And they were like, "Yep" ive almost covered my whole yard and all my beds, and added it into my compost so far, and I have my chickens rotating over it every 4 days. Food Forest here we come!!!