Nov 6

Nov 6 Leaves and the Garden

I spent an hour this morning raking leaves from a liquidambar tree in a friend’s front yard. Last year she gave me several bags of her leaves which I added over the winter to my compost bin.

I generally have plenty of “green” (nitrogen sources) for composting but lack sources of “brown” or carbon to mix in. I miss the liquidambar tree that graced our property for many years.

We have an older SUV we’ve kept around for hauling mulch from the municipal composting facility, nursery purchases and building supplies.

Pressed down, the trash cans were pleasantly heavy. Leaves will continue to fall from my friend’s tree through December so I’ll be heading back frequently with my garden companion, Lucy who watched me from the front seat.

Keep Your Garden Healthy Using Leaves

Barbara Pleasant, perhaps my favorite garden writer, has a great blogpost linked above. Here’s the first paragraph:

I think the team here at GrowVeg has done a great job providing solid information on ways to use leaves in your garden. Ben’s blog on Making Leaf Mold - Gardener's Gold (2011) opened a lively dialog on leaves, to which I added my experiences in Using Leaves in the Vegetable Garden (2013). Our tips (plus many more) made it into the 7 Ways to Use Leaves in Your Garden video, which may be the best five minutes you will ever spend as you contemplate what to do with this year’s crop of leaves.