The Natural Gardener: Leaves build soil and stop weeds

Leaves are not waste and should not be wasted.  They are the best and cheapest mulch around for stopping weeds, building soil and providing food and habitat for predator bugs.  This retired Natural Gardener used to haul bags of excess leaves away for free to customers through the fall, spreading them to reduce work and help preferred plants grow for the rest of the year.  Now I am taking leaves for my own yard only. I prefer leaves in clear plastic bags.  I don’t take bags heavier than 50 pounds, or with too many sticks.

Nearly every other mulch is a seedbed as soon as it is spread.  Seeds fall on top, find a crevice and grow.  Leaves dry out on top, and so make a lousy seed bed for anything that falls on top of them.  Even a thin layer stops small seeds beneath them that need sun to sprout.  Two inches or more can smother most seeds as well as small plants and feed the soil enough to soften it and make it easier to pull the weeds that grow. 

The deeper they are laid, the more weeds they can stop and the more they build the soil and soften it.  A foot or more will grow huge vegetables, while they rot and worms and pill bugs eat them over the course of the gardening year.  That increased fertility can be maintained with only a few inches per year. 

The only thing comparable to leaves for building soil is compost, which leaves become without any special help, if they aren’t mounded.  A mound sheds water, within which leaves can stay dry and not decompose for years.  Spread flat, a foot of leaves is the equivalent of 6 inches of compost, which can also grow huge vegetables, plus can be used to build beds year-round.  In late spring and summer, exposed compost also dries out quickly, but in winter, it is a seed bed for whatever falls on it. 

You can start small cool-weather seeds by spreading an inch of compost on top of leaves and scattering the seeds in it; for larger seeds in late spring and summer, scatter seeds on the leaves and cover them with compost.  You can also poke large seeds like peas, corn, beans and squash into the leaves to where it is moist to maintain that cover of dry leaves while they grow.  You can plant starts into leaves as well, with or without compost on top.  

You can warm the leaves to help the seeds and starts grow faster by putting rocks around them.  Rounded river rocks, just small enough to move with one hand, are easy to move and hold heat through the night, when the plants need it most.  The smaller the rocks, the hotter they get but the less heat they hold through the night.  Larger rocks can be used to provide a solid edge for mulch beds and keep them from spreading.

Leaves should be removed from buildings, pavements, gravel, and paths.  They should be left and built up on open ground, in beds and borders, and mulch-mowed into lawns.  If you have too many, put your excess in clear bags and call me.

Gardening is easy if you do it naturally.  Litter is tagging, marking the territory of the disorderly.

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener      541-955-9040             rycke@gardener.com