A Great Way To Make All Those Leaves In Your Back Yard Usefull!

Ok so one of the cool things that has been keeping me busy and out of trouble is that I have been learning about leaf mould. Normally youtube allows me to share videos - nice and easy, but for some reason this video ( and it may be because it is out of country) will not do it so I have a link below. When I have have tested it - I have been taken to a page and then have to click on another link to actually get to the video. The video starts out slow - he opens his back door and walks across his lawn but if you will be patient I think you will learn quite a bit. 

So I had a whole bunch of leaves accumulating in my back yard and what better way to deal with them than to get my mower out. My push mower that has a catchment bag. I did not do this but one of the videos I watched said that it will cut the leaves littler if you raise the blade up - but since I don't know how and I did not want to bother my husband with that since I don't know if it makes a big difference or not, I just used my mower as is. I mowed around over the leaves. I lucked out because the weekend before there was a young man at our house and he and our granddaughters were out in the back yard - he used a rake and was gathering up leaves so they could jump in them. Well thankfully most of the pile stayed put so I mowed over several areas and would hit a bit of this pile. You see if you mow and get some greenery - in your leaves - mix it up a bit with some of this and some of that - you have a better chance of things breaking down and doing better. 

So in the description of the video below he has a link to a couple of composter bins. My husband ordered me one and when we saw how cool it was he got me a second one. Anyway so one weekend I mowed a bit and then dumped leaves into a trash bag and then mowed some more, dumping that into a bag. And just kept doing that till I had 6-8 bags worth well I had 6 bags and a large trashcan full. I took the leaves that were in the trashcan and I put them into a good sized raised garden box that we had that was pretty empty. And I layered it with some droppings from my chicken coop as well- I put some cardboard over that and wet it all really good. When I water my plants I water this as well. I am hoping that this can all break down and just add to the nutrition level of this garden box. We had to wait a week or so for the boxes to get here. And so this past Sunday I actually got my composters placed where I wanted them and then I filled them up - doing the same thing I did with the raised bed- I layered some chicken waste in there as well. Then I soaked the leaves with water. This is very important. So do not leave this step out. 

You will want to press the leave down when you fill it up. And then once you water them down - be prepared that a few days later the leaves will compact down quite a bit. That happened with mine. And so yesterday I actually mowed some more leaves and grass to put some more leaves into the composters. And then I watered them down quite a bit. 

So they say that if your leaves are cut up that it will take less time to decompose. So if you use just straight leaves - the way they fall - it could be a year before you have nice leaf mould, but if you cut up the leaves- like you do with a mower- then it takes about 6 months. I am excited about this because come spring I should have some awesome leaf mould to add to my garden!! 

And if you can't get composting bins - you will be happy to know that you can just put the leaves in trashbags and fill the bags  up with water - then you will poke holes in the bags all over. And just put them aside and you will get leave mould - in either 6 months or 1 year.   

So much great information on youtube - wade through all the junk and find the great stuff. Here is the video that I was refering to! Enjoy! :O) 

Great Leaf Mould Youtube Video 

How to make Leaf Mold (Mould) the Easy Way