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Re last year's leaves

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

All,


Some comments from my own experiences on 'last years leaves'

I live in Aberdeen Scotland.  There are a lot of trees in the area and I
collect leaves stacking them into a huge pile on their own.  

I use two mechanisms to break these leaves down into leaf mould.  

The obvious one is to retain about ten percent of the rotted leaf mould
pile to mix in with the new leaves.  This kicks off the bacterial
breakdown process nicely.  

The other thing I do is to spread a proprietary solution on them that
contains the bacteria in a liquid suspension - available in garden
shops.  You make up something like 10 ml of solution in a two gallon
bucket and water it onto the pile.  If anyone is interested, I'll look
through the cupboard for the manufacturer's name when I have a moment
(more like if I remember!).

Between the two mechanisms above, the leaves are in a fit state for use
in about a year - just before the next Autumn collection time. 

Now for the use of leaves and leaf mould.  I ALWAYS DIG IN THE LEAVES
ROTTED OR NOT.  Reasons are twofold.

Reason one is they harbour slugs like nothing I know, which then spring
out and eat all your seedlings.  

The other reason, which is maybe due to where I live, is that the wind
usually dries out the leaves / leaf mould, thereby making it lighter,
then the wind blows everything away.  Having watched my carefully
collected and composted leaves three inches deep across my vegetable
garden being blown to the four winds . . . now I always dig or hoe it
in.  

For my money, if you insist on mulching leaves around fruit trees,
roses, and coloured weeds, you should pile a couple of inches of damp
grass clippings to hold them down.  The blackbirds and wind still remove
this combination by about this time of year . . . another hence dig them
in.

Other comments - I hold off planting my spuds until the daffs are in
bloom.  
My daffodils outside the front of the house were in bloom 13 March in
1998.  They don't look like they will bloom in the next few days putting
this year, 1999 about 10 or more days behind last year.  Tattie shoots
are finally going green though.  

regards

Brian

"Daddy, why do those people have to use Hewlett Packard Openmail?"
"Don't stare, son - it's not polite."


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