What to Do with All the Dead Leaves
Autumn or fall leaves are very beautiful, but it can be hard work raking them up. If you use a leaf blower you can try to make it eco-friendly as possible.
Once you’ve collected those leaves, here’s what to do with them.
1. Don’t Bag and Dump Them
This is the most common option. And the least eco-friendly. The leaves will decompose, but the plastic bag won’t. They’ll contribute to the already huge piles of waste accumulating in our landfills. Not all collection services take garden refuse. Some services require you to use a special composting bag – just try to put it out close to collection time so it doesn’t get wet!
2. Don’t burn them
This is another bad thing to do. It creates a lot of smoke (especially if the leaves are damp) which is most unpleasant for you and your neighbours, and burning leaves also releases particulate matter and nasty compounds.
3. Leave them on your lawn
You can do this – it’s even better if you mow the lawn (the mower will chop the leaves), and the leaves will provide nutrients for the lawn as they decompose. However, they also ‘clog up’ the lawn and make it more difficult for it to ‘breathe’.
4. Give them to neighbours, gardening club members and friends with compost heaps
Good idea! People are often looking for more material for their compost heaps. The leaves don’t go to landfill, and instead provide nourishment for other gardens, and reduce the need for artificial fertilizers. People are often very glad of the extra leaves – generally, the dry element in compost is more difficult to come by than all the wet food scraps and grass clippings, so dry leaves can be a big boon for backyard composters.
5. Give them to organic farmers in your area
Good idea, but no, they probably won’t be able to take them as they’re not necessarily 100% organic. Try a local small-scale non-organic farm where they do their own composting.
6. Give them to a local nursery or parks management
Some nurseries charge you for this (because they have to mulch it) but it’s still better than sending it to landfill. They use it to nourish their plants.
7. The best option: use them yourself!
Use leaves as mulch for your own garden. They are not as long-lasting as say, wood mulch, but they will certainly fulfil their natural role as ground cover, suppressing weeds, buffering the soil and plant roots from temperature variances, and releasing nutrients as they decompose. They also increase the activity of important microorganisms in the soil. If your leaves are large, it’s a good idea to run them through a leaf-shredder (or to crunch them by hand a bit). Use this mulch around the base of trees and over open soil in your garden or yard.
Use leaves as kindling. If you have a wood-burning stove or wish to start a fire, dry leaves make perfect kindling to get the fire started.
Use leaves for art projects for the kids, or use them as part of a potpourri collection. Or use them to make beautiful home decor.
The very best thing you can do is to compost your leaves. If left to their own devices in a natural ecosystem, leaves become rich humus. And, if you let them, they’ll turn into a rich compost for your garden. All you have to do is let time work its magic. Create a small circle from chicken wire and leave them to rot there, or wait until you need to add dry material to your compost heap. Bonus tip: plant runner beans or other plants which need support next to your chicken wire.
Tip: When using leaves as compost, it’s important that they’re dry. Otherwise, unless they’re supplemented with a dry material like straw or sawdust, your compost will be too wet and will just rot. Dry material is not always easy to find, so take advantage of it while you can!
Summary
The best way to get rid of leaves in your garden is with a rake. Try an ergonomic one to protect your back. You get exercise, fresh air, and stay warm! Alternatively, teach kids the value of earning their money by employing them to rake the leaves for you. If these options aren’t feasible, get an electric, corded leaf blower. Once the leaves are collected, don’t burn them, don’t bag and dump them. Use them in your own garden for mulch or compost, or give them to someone who can use them in that way.
Leaves are nature’s gold!
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Warm regards,
Hi Green Goddess,
When we had the land and garden for it, we would mulch them and use the in our yard in the outer garden area.
Use those nutrients in the land, for sure!
Happy Dating and Relationships,
April Braswell
In our town they have biodegradable bags you have to use to bag your leaves. Then the city comes around picks them up. However I have no idea what they do with them form there. I will have to check that out.
Leaves mixed with cut grass , dumped into a composting bin , I thought would make a good compost or mulch for use around the garden .
Sometimes we mow them, but other times we dump them at the back of our yard that drops off to a cranberry bog below. As the years go by, the rain washes away the roots of the trees along the edge and then the trees fall down the embankment. At the top it drops away gradually so there is almost a ledge that we dump them on. We also dump dead branches there as well. You had a lot of great suggestions for other ways to use them.
Lisa McLellan
Babysitting Services, Nanny Services, and Nanny agencies
Thanks for the variety of ideas about what to do with the leaves. Using them as mulch for your garden seems like the best option.
Michael
I’ve always liked the idea of a compost pile. I also thought you had to dig a hole and through everything in there to let it rot. What methods do you suggest or know of?
Thanks
Jennifer Battaglino
Clare, I lot of good ideas, once again, for using your leaves. Makes me glad for now that I only have a court yard!!!
Sonya Lenzo
You mentioned the extra cost of a nursery to take your leaves because they had to mulch it… how does one mulch something and does it really require that extra cost?
Mark Hogan
I think it would depend on your version of “cost”. They might need machinery to cut or mash the leaves, then time and space to compost. Personally, I’m not used to nurseries charging for it, but I’m told it does happen.
I’ve been wanting to learn to compost for a while. Do you have any tips on how to get started?
Cherie Miranda
Certainly Cherie, go to my page here http://www.ecofriendlylink.com/composting.php
I have to say I’m a little torn on my decsision on what I did with my dead leaves and for that matter twigs from pruned trees. I Bought a mulcher and did what I could but it runs on gas and I could only find 1 brand in all of Las Vegas.
We will typically use them for mulch in our beds after we chop them up in a chopper. Makes great mulch.
I must confess though, I do recall with great nostalgia the smell of burning leaves as that was the method of disposal when I was growing up.
Dennis
Hi Clare ~
Great advice and a nice breakdown of options of what can be done with the leaves. I prefer to use what I can in the garden and recycle the rest ( weekly pick up is a luxury we have ).
Stay Amazing and Do Great Things, Neil
Great advice. I learnt that wet compost will just rot. So I need to get out ond rake before it rains.
LOL Andrew!
Gosh, I am wishing for a big bag of oak leaves that I was thinking of knocking on a neighbor’s door and asking her if I could rake some into a bag! Crazy how some people just look at the dead leaves as trash and I think of it as gold!
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