Keith Hansen

Cooler weather has finally arrived in East Texas. All of our deciduous trees are rapidly losing their abundant leaves. The slightest breeze brings down a shower of leaves to carpet the lawn, drive, sidewalk and all other surfaces. Now comes the time to decide how to deal with them.

The most fun thing to do is to rake them into big piles for the kids to jump into and scatter them around again. At least, it's the most fun for the kids! Least enjoyable thing is raking and bagging them. What are our options?

Bagging leaves for curbside garbage pickup is not an environmentally friendly option, nor is it financially wise. All those bags of leaves from across the community fill up landfill space a lot faster than necessary. Leaves in sealed bags don't break down in landfills, so they remain undecomposed for decades (or longer), taking up valuable space from stuff that is truly not recyclable.

With the challenge of locating, and the high cost of creating, new landfills, we need to make existing landfills last as long as possible. Remember, the costs are always passed on in taxes to the end user, and that's us!

One option some folks take is to do nothing and just let the leaves remain all winter. This is not good for our southern grasses. A thick layer of leaves creates a dark, damp, stagnant zone where diseases can proliferate, harming the turf.

Burning is not a good option either. Leaves don't burn cleanly, and can smolder for a long time. People who suffer from allergies or asthma know that the smoke from burning leaves aggravates symptoms and makes breathing difficult.

MOWING

Mowing the leaves where they lay is the quickest, easiest and simplest means of disposal. Some folks hesitate to recycle leaves back into the lawn, fearing they will create thatch or other problems.

But research conducted in many parts of the country has shown that mowing leaves into the lawn does not cause problems.

The best results are obtained by using a mulching mower which cuts and recuts leaves several times. The smaller the pieces, the quicker microbes, which are active all year, can attack and break down the leaves into humus.

You may need to make two or more passes over larger leaves to get a finely shredded product. I find it much easier to not wait until all the leaves are completely off the trees and on the ground, but rather mow often, even if the grass doesn't need cutting. The deeper the layer of leaves, the more difficult it is to get them all shredded.

SHEET COMPOSTING

An option for large garden areas is to place a layer of shredded leaves over the surface of the soil and let them decompose in place. A thin layer of cotton seed meal or other high nitrogen material will speed the decomposition. Alternatively, you can also simply rototill the layer of leaves into the soil. As they break down over the winter, they improve the soil health which helps grow better vegetables and flowers.

MULCHING

This is a great way to deal with excess leaves. One option is to place leaves in the pathways of your garden and flower bed. They will decompose in place, reduce weed problems, and enrich the soil, all at the same time. Another use for shredded leaves is as a layer of mulch in perennial and shrub beds, and around the base of young trees. Just make sure that larger leaves are shredded first. Large, wet leaves will mat into a nearly impermeable layer, restricting air and water movement.

TRADITIONAL COMPOSTING

Large amounts of leaves and other organic matter can be recycled by creating contained or freestanding compost piles. The resulting product is perfect for adding to and enriching the soil in just about every gardening project around the home.

Gathering a mix of shredded leaves and grass clippings from mowing is an easy way to obtain ingredients to help make active compost. The feedstock for active compost must include both high carbon and high nitrogen materials.

Dried winter leaves are very high in carbon, but low in nitrogen, while green grass clippings are much higher in nitrogen.

Research conducted at Rutgers University by Dr. Peter Strom showed a mix of 2 or 3 parts leaves to 1 part grass clippings as the optimum combination of the ingredients for speedy decomposition in the compost pile.

Since grass clippings are not abundant by the time leaves begin falling, many composters stockpile leaves now, and then use them in the spring and summer when clippings are more available.

If you don't have a bagger to collect leaves and grass clippings, you can mow in one direction and continually side discharge the mix into a pile against a wall or fence for easier raking and collecting. Just as in mulching back into the lawn, shredding the leaves allows them to break down much faster. An easy way to shred leaves for a compost pile is to make windrows of leaves near a wall or fence and repeatedly mow.

For a look at composting bins, take a trip to the IDEA Garden in the Tyler Rose Garden where you can see an attractive, homemade, three bin system.


Keith Hansen is Smith County Horticulturist with Texas Cooperative Extension. His Web page is http://EastTex-asGardening.tamu.edu Texas Cooperative Extension educational programs are open to all individuals without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age or national origin.

Keith Hansen
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