Both home gardeners and commercial growers are bothered and blessed by the problem of what to do with leaves, vegetable waste, and crop residues. Rightly handled, this material is not an unwanted waste but a valuable byproduct.
Avoid Burning Leaves and Surplus Vegetables
Right at the beginning, it should be said that burning is rarely the best method of leaf and surplus vegetable disposal, and the semi-annual smogs of fall and spring clean-up campaigns indicate poor management of and a loss of valuable fertilizer material.
It is not unusual to burn up tree leaves and garden residue and a few weeks or months later, spend real “folding money” for commercial fertilizer or a truckload of “black dirt” with no more soil improvement value than the leaves so thoughtlessly consigned to the dames.
The only exception is leaves infected with some serious disease, which is relatively rare, or those like walnut and eucalyptus which are believed to contain substances toxic to some plants.
Even in the latter case, several months of weathering or composting may eliminate the objectionable factors.
Leaves as a Source of Minerals and Humus
As trees root more deeply than most annuals and other herbaceous plants, they bring up and store in their leaves minerals found deep in the sub-soil.
Biological chemists have analyzed tree leaves and published tables showing the mineral content and fertilizer value of different species.
These are too long and elaborate to interest anyone, not a plant food specialist, but they contain some conclusions of value to home gardeners.
Tree leaves contain calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, and nitrogen, with basswood ranking exceptionally high in mineral content.
Sugar maple also ranks high for the quantity of its leaf crop and its fertilizer value.
Leaves are not only a source of minerals deep in the soil but also a source of humus, the activator of the soil.
Humus retains moisture, loosens and aerates the soil, improves drainage, feeds the bacteria which break down the soil wastes into plant foods, and releases plant foods slowly.
We cannot long continue to rob the soil bank without making some new deposits and not using up our capital and its fertility.
Two Approach of Disposing Leaves
Our biggest problem each fall is properly disposing of the multitudes of leaves. Here we have two approaches, either pick up the leaves or dispose of them in place. Let us begin with the latter.
Direct Leaf Grinding
Direct, on-the-ground leaf grinding is made possible by the use of many rotary lawnmowers equipped with suitable attachments. Their outstanding advantage is that they can reduce the cut herbage to a finer consistency than other types of mowers.
The machines operate on a suction principle. The leaves are drawn into the machine and cut to bits by the rapidly revolving blades. This finely-shredded material falls to the ground as a beneficial mulch, returning to the soil the nutrients taken from it.
Likewise, the material is quickly incorporated into the soil, while it might take as much as two years for the whole leaves to decompose, and the lawn grass beneath would be killed off in the process as well.
Leaf Raking
The other alternative, raking, is slow. Ordinary garden rakes are too small, and the teeth too short. They fill up quickly.
Also, one must do a lot of arm and leg work to clear a small space. The old-fashioned wooden lawn rake and some modern rubber or wire rakes are much faster.
However, several rotary brush lawn and leaf sweepers are now available at a price moderate enough to justify their use on relatively small lawns and gardens.
One with which I am familiar weighs but 15 pounds, has a canvas catcher which holds three bushels, and operates at better than three times the speed of ordinary hand raking with little effort. This is something worthwhile, and I predict a bright future for these sweepers.
For large-scale lawn sweeping and leaf gathering, a machine operates like a vacuum cleaner. For some years, municipalities used large suction leaf gatherers for collecting street-side leaves.
Now, however, the need for a smaller, more flexible, and less expensive, power-driven machine has been met with an “air rake,” a motor-driven vacuum cleaner ten times faster than hand raking. It will be a boon to large property maintenance as soon as it is better known.
Once the leaves are raked or picked up mechanically, there is the problem of how to haul them away.
Hauling Leaves Away
One of the simplest ways is to rake or dump the leaves on a large canvas square or piece of burlap or erosional, available from many of the larger seed houses. When it is full, it is picked up by the handles or tied corners and carried or pulled away.
Another convenient way — one that requires lifting the leaves but is easier on the back—is a wire leaf rack easily attached to any wooden wheelbarrow.
Still, another is a light, convenient, two-wheeled garden truck or “carry-all” with a canvas container 44” inches long, 18” inches high, and 24” inches wide.
Grass Clippings
Of course, all that we have said about the value of saving leaves also applies to grass clippings.
A serious mistake is the discarding of these clippings, for this short-cut grass which British dairymen call “high protein grass,” is of more value as a soil improvement ingredient than more mature plants or stalk residue.
But these clippings are often swept up and taken from the lawn where they were grown, dumped in an alley or vacant lot, or sent off in a garbage truck. So such organic materials, potentially rich in soil improvement value, are lost.
Now that we have picked up the leaves and plant wastes, what do we do next? First, they can be applied as a fairly heavy mulch to such plants as camellias, rhododendrons, azaleas, and other plants that require acid soil, for without a little lime, such materials are often acidic.
Such use is good. Secondly, we can mix the leaves and clippings into the soil, but unless incorporated thoroughly into the soil, many leaves tend to mat and remain undecayed for several years. That is not good.
Thirdly, the material can be chopped up in one of the shredders or grinders now readily available and restored to the soil as a mulch, incorporated into the soil, or built into a compost pile.
Until recently, however, the machines available for this purpose have been too large and costly for home gardeners and smaller commercial growers. Now, however, there are a number of them that serve the purpose admirably.
Use of Garden Tractors
These are table or wheel-mounted machines powered by electric motors, gas engines, or belts driven by garden tractors. The price range of these machines is within the budget of ordinary garden owners.
One hand-operated cutter sells for slightly under $40, and electric machines are from around $50 to $100.
A larger capacity machine, mounted on a wheeled cart, is priced somewhat higher but has a capacity of about 50 cubic feet of plant material an hour. It all depends upon which best meets the particular need and pocketbook.
A Source of Mulching Material
There are also some instances where bagged autumn leaves are a serviceable garden adjunct—a source of mulching material for next year— but it is a time-wasting operation to try to hold a potato or onion sack open with one hand and stuff it with the other.
The best way is to make a bag-holding frame to keep the sack open. Coffee and peanut bags are better and can often be obtained for a few cents from large grocery houses, coffee and peanut roasters, and processors.
Bagged leaves, however, should not be stored in buildings. They are a fire risk and make a home for rats, mice, and insects. Store them in a corner of the garden. The bags usually retain their tensile strength through one winter’s exposure.
Leaf Storage Container
Another good over-winter leaf storage container can be made of poultry wire. This should be about 4 feet high. A 1-inch mesh holds the leaves better than a 2-inch.
By such storage, one can keep a supply of mulching material for keeping down the weeds and retaining moisture in the soil on next year’s vegetable crops and berry bushes.
And my own experience shows that many more gardeners need to know more about the advantages of mulching contrasted with weed pulling and ground cultivation, as well as the value of saving humus-building materials.
44659 by Archer P. Whallon