Gardening / composting...

[sentient schmoo]

Has anyone here successfully composted leaves? I am talking about a LOT of leaves. I feel like my pile grows without decomposing. Not interested in a leaf wall separating the woods, either. Maybe I should just be tagging @jfz80 in this...

I know there’s got to be material balance in composting but I can’t leave food scraps out in the open due to wildlife, namely the bears.

 

[morganism]

You should take an old metal garbage can, fill it with leaves, and stick the head of a string trimmer in there to break them up. You can also buy a probiotic from a hydroponics company that will help break em down.

Garden and homesteading stuff, go to Permies

Permaculture and homesteading goofballs

 

[sentient schmoo]

Yay thank you! Looks like I was searching wrong place before I made this post.

 

[sentient schmoo]

AH I see that’s external - cool forum. I’m gonna dig around on there for some ideas because a single trash can (or even three) won’t contain even a fraction of all the leaves - guess my woods brush pile will live to see another day.

I tried fencing a few years back just to keep the leaves in a more structured pile but it didn’t have enough cover.

 

[morganism]

1. Just to add some background, if you have "colorful" fall leaves, they are loaded with anti-bacterial anti-oxidants, carotenes, just like some vitamins.

If you are going to process em in the can anyway, you might consider going ahead and steaming them , and adding cut twigs and branches, and bagging them, and adding some innoculants to really make em into fantastic garden soil. I would douse em with seawater if you are near a coast, or some Sea-90 if your not, them smoke em, bag em, and add some of the mushroom inoculant to really get some multiuse food out of a waste stream.

Fungi Perfecti - Fungi.com

If you just buy one of their bagged mushroom kits, after growing one out, you can just use the used up one to innoculate your own batches.

 

[morganism]

1. Just to add some background, if you have "colorful" fall leaves, they are loaded with anti-bacterial anti-oxidants, carotenes, just like some vitamins.

If you are going to process em in the can anyway, you might consider going ahead and steaming them , and adding cut twigs and branches, and bagging them, and adding some innoculants to really make em into fantastic garden soil. I would douse em with seawater if you are near a coast, or some Sea-90 if your not, them smoke em, bag em, and add some of the mushroom inoculant to really get some multiuse food out of a waste stream.

Fungi Perfecti - Fungi.com

If you just buy one of their bagged mushroom kits, after growing one out, you can just use the used up one to innoculate your own batches.

 

[Music Man]

just throw some dirt in with the leaves, that should get them started.

 

[sentient schmoo]

just throw some dirt in with the leaves, that should get them started.

I’m not joking when I say it is a lot of leaves / I’m building a leaf wall. At this point I might just dig a pit and be done with it, haha.

 

[scrapdaddy]

It's a lot of work, but you need some other ingredients, manure, grass clippings, etc. to get the leaves to break down. You'll need to turn your pile over every couple weeks or so to mix it up. My Dad used to bale the leaves and save them until Summer then mix with grass clippings made great compost. I mix used hay with goat and Llama pellets and leaves to make mine, spread it on my hay fields and gardens.

 

[ff347]

Are you trying to compost them for use or get the volume of leaves more manageable?

I use a walk behind Billy Goat vacuum to get my leaves as small as possible. It bags them and will make most leaves about half the size of a stamp, then I dump them out and do it again. They are nice and tiny at that point. I use them on the flower beds or work them into parts of the yard that need the soil conditioned.

 

[ff347]

@jvalex

This is what I was referring to. Grinding speeds up the process no matter what you are going to do with them.

Billy Goat Vacuum Like New

 

[sentient schmoo]

Want! I still haven’t done an damn thing with the leaves. But I did mow most of the grassy parts today...

 

[ff347]

Ha, got a push reel too! When you get the blades lapped and set right nothing else comes close. They suck on weeds though.

 

[sentient schmoo]

It definitely needs to be sharpened, and oiled.

I’m okay with it sucking on weeds; dandelions are always welcome in my yard and I make salves out of the plantain.

 

[ferg]

When it greens up out here come get all the plantain you want. It just get mowed under.

 

[sentient schmoo]

Wait, where are you again? Are we close?

When it greens up out here come get all the plantain you want. It just get mowed under.

 

[ferg]

Eastern OK. Bit of a drive for you but it's ok, we'll have plenty ticks and chiggers on reserve for you!

 

[Prairie Swamp]

My dumbass keeps planting trees - so I had to break down and buy a yard vac as there's no way I can rake by hand in the 2 weeks between leaf fall and snow. This connects to the discharge of the mover deck (pull behind vac.)

Just dumb luck I guess but I just mow/pick up leaves and throw them in a pile. In this miserable swamp by the following spring they are pretty well composted down to be used as mulch or soil amendment.

So yeah chop them up and add grass. I'm talking maple and oak leaves here.

 

[surfpig]

I use one of these:

Basically an upside-down weed eater. It cuts down the volume considerably, and the smaller bits compost a lot faster. You'll probably need to add some nitrogen to the mix, like manure, to get things rolling.

 

[scrapdaddy]

I wish I had a picture of my Dad's baler he built for his leaves. He made it with an old bumper jack, then stored the baled leaves until Summer and used a grinder similar to the one above. Mixed with grass clippings and whatever he could get, manure or just blood meal, made some great compost.