Recycle Autumn Leaves!

If you have been bagging your leaves for the trash, please think about recycling them on your property instead. Here's three EASY ways to use those precious fall leaves.

STOP Sending Your Leaves to the Landfill!!!

Some towns/cities ask us to put lawn and garden clippings in a separate can or bag so the trash service or sanitation crew can haul it to the landfill separately, or maybe take it to the municipal composting facility. If there is such a program, later on you can buy back your leaves to add to your garden as soil amendment, use as mulch or whathaveyou. This is crazy.

Keep and Use those leaves in your landscape, flower garden, or vegetable garden.

Make Leaf Mold or Compost -- If you keep your leaves, you can make your own composted leaves easily enough -- just pile them up and wait a year or so. This will result in what is fancily called "leaf mold" or composted leaves, an ideal organic soil amendment. You can add the leaves to your regular compost pile, too. Chopping the leaves is not strictly necessary but it will help speed up the decomposition process, especially if they are large leaves.

Make Leaf Mulch -- SO EASY! Not into composting, no problem. Chop your leaves and use them as mulch. Use a chipper shredder, a lawn mower, or a weed whacker in a trash can to chop your leaves. Then apply them in a flat layer two to three inches thick over your flower bed or shrub bed. This is exactly what nature does with the leaves in the forest. You can do it, too.

Leaves as Soil Amendment -- QUICK AND DIRTY!! Or, dig the leaves lightly into the soil in your garden. By spring, they will be partially rotted down and your soil will be richer in organic matter. This is a sort of giving back to the soil so it can stay healthy and productive. Organic matter is so valuable, it helps the soil hold both air and water, adds some nutrients, and also feeds the soil microbes. Once, again, chopping the leaves is helpful if they are large leaves but not strictly necessary.

So I've given you three simple ways to recycle your autumn leaves, and I hope you'll try at least one method this fall or maybe all three. If your neighbors bag their leaves, see if you can swipe some and bring them home, sort of a new twist on dumpster diving. There is NEVER too much organic matter in the garden.