In Praise of Leaf Mold

This website has nothing to do with TV personality Paul James, The Gardener Guy of Tulsa, Oklahoma

Home Latest Articles Article Archive NYTimes Articles Garden Visits People, Places and Plants Magazine Gardening Notes and Tips Sources and Venues Local Vendors I Like About Me / Contact Me!				In Praise of Leaf Mold Most people think of mold as the yucky stuff growing on the forgotten broccoli in the back of the refrigerator. But leaf mold is a term used by soil scientists for decayed leaves that have broken down and turned into a wonderful soil supplement. Now is the time to make some. Making leaf mold takes time - generally two years or so. When you are done you have a rich dark material that no longer looks like leaves. You can use it as a mulch, dig it into the soil or use with your houseplants. As mulch it will hold in moisture, attract earthworms and slowly become part of the soil. I visited garden writer Sydney Eddison during the terrible drought of 2000 at her home in Connecticut. A watering ban had been imposed, and mature trees were dying for lack of water. Her pond has dry. But her soil in her flower beds was lightly moist, rich and fluffy. It was soil that most roses only dream of - but never get their roots in. "How is it that your soil is so beautiful during this terrible drought?" I asked Sydney. Her answer was simple: leaf mold. Each fall for 30 years her husband Martin ran over their considerable lawn with the lawn mower and collected the chopped leaves and grass clippings. He stored the leaves in contractor bags all winter, and she applied them to the flower beds each spring. Each year the layer of leaf mold got a little thicker, the older stuff turning into true leaf mold, while the top layer slowly broke down. It held down the weeds, too. I don't bag my leaves in the fall, but put them directly in their final resting place - the vegetable garden or in a flower bed. But if you wish to be tidy, you can collect them and hold them in "corral" for a couple of years until the leaves turn into leaf mold. A chicken wire fence will hold the leaves in one place and keep them from blowing around. Using wooden grade stakes or pipe and 3-foot wire mesh fencing, make a four-foot diameter circle. Pack down the leaves as you add them. The great thing about mowing the lawn and chopping up the leaves is that it adds fresh green grass, which is high in nitrogen. Leaf mold is not created by magic, but by microorganisms. Fungi and bacteria need both carbon and nitrogen in order to make the proteins needed to grow and multiply. Leaves are very high in carbon, but low in nitrogen. If you rake your leaves without first mowing the lawn, your leaf pile will languish unless you add a source of nitrogen, just as your compost pile will never get hot without a source of both carbon and nitrogen. The perfect ratio, I've read, is 30 parts of brown matter to 1 part green matter or manure (by weight). One easy way to get a leaf pile "cooking" is to sprinkle some bagged fertilizer on it as you build it up - a couple of pounds for every 6 inches of leaves would probably do. Organic fertilizer is good for that, but it's an expense you can avoid. Got sheep? Got friends with sheep, llamas or goats? Get some manure and add it to the leaf pile. Horse manure would do, though I avoid it because it is so full of weed seeds, which the animals above generally do not contain. In principle, a working compost pile gets hot enough to kill grass seeds, but I try not to take chances and avoid fresh horse and cow manure. If you have a source of spent hops from a brewery or coffee grounds from your local Starbucks (they give the grounds away), they will add nitrogen, too. The other factor needed for a working compost or leaf pile is moisture. Too dry and nothing happens, but in our climate that should not be a problem. Too wet and microbial action stops. When I start a new compost pile I generally put a foot of brush on the bottom, which keeps the pile from sitting on a water-logged soil during spring rains, and allows air into the pile from below. You can use your leaf mold in flower pots to great success. Most potting soils are largely peat moss, which provides very little nutrition to plants √ hence the need to add liquid fertilizers. But if you use a mix of leaf mold, compost and 10% perlite or vermiculite, you can make our own potting mix that will make your house plants smile - and grow. Vermiculite and perlite are soil additives that are made like popcorn, but at temperatures high enough to make the minerals pop. Perlite is the white stuff in potting mixes; it is inert and has a neutral pH. It holds water on its surface. Vermiculite is also inert, but brown and shiny. It absorbs water, up to 16 times its own weight, so it can create a soggy soil if you use too much. It varies in pH, and may be quite alkaline. Both help to keep soil in pots from getting compacted, but are not recommended for use in the garden. So get to work before the snow flies. Create a good leaf pile - even if means stealing some bagged leaves from your neighbors. Henry Homeyer is a garden designer and gardening consultant. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com. He may be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746
Last update: Sunday, October 18, 2009 at 5:33:12 PM.