USE YOUR LEAVES!

 The leaves have finally started falling! Its starting out slow, but they are falling. At this point I can't get enough to cover my new bed at the south end of my house, but it won't be long.

Leaves are a valuable gift from our trees. I know... a lot of people, especially non-gardeners, probably wouldn't agree with that statement. But its true.... they are a gift. Leaves are nutrient-rich. Trees put down roots deep into the soil and absorb nutrients and minerals that aren't available at the surface. The roots send these nutrients and minerals through the tree to the leaves, where they are stored. When the tree drops its leaves, it is dropping this free fertilizer at our feet. All gardeners should take advantage of this gift.

You can rake the leaves and just pile them up and with time they will decompose and make compost. They can be used as mulch, but whole leaves can pack down and not allow water to penetrate to the soil. Alas, there is a better way! Shredded leaves aren't as likely to pack down and they will also decompose faster.

 Leaves can be shredded in a few different ways. The most common is to run over them with a lawn mower, and a bagging mower means.... no raking!  Another method is with a leaf blower that converts to a leaf vacuum. With these the shredded leaves are blown into a shoulder bag.... again.....no raking! Then there is the least favorite method..... raking! Rake the leaves and put them into some kind of container. This could be a cylinder made of chicken wire or a large garbage can. Then use a weed eater to shred the leaves in the container. (Be sure to use eye protection with this method). After the leaves are shredded they make a great mulch or can be used in a compost pile.

When composting leaves alone, it can take quite a while to get compost from them. We need to mix the leaves with a nitrogen source if we want to speed up the process. Kitchen scraps aren't really all that rich in nitrogen.  They are too old to have a high level of nitrogen. But, one source from the kitchen is an excellent source of nitrogen....coffee grounds. Coffee grounds are high in nitrogen and also high in phosphorus and potassium. Coffee shops are always willing to give away used grounds.... so here is another source for free fertilizer. If you're like me (a tight wad), free is always good!  So build a pile 4 feet across and 4 feet high and mix in 10 - 15 pounds of coffee grounds....the pile will heat up, then you can use it as a hand warmer when you are doing your winter chores in the garden. Its probably better to feed your kitchen scraps to your worm bin if you have one. This produces the only thing better than compost for feeding a garden....worm castings. But that is another story for another post.

If you don't want  to use the leaves, shred them with your mower and leave them on your lawn. They will decompose and help build fertility for your lawn. Whatever you do, don't bag them up and put them at the curb. I know we have all seen the bags by the road, waiting to be picked up and hauled to the landfill. Mike McGrath, who was the editor for Organic Gardening Magazine at one time, called these bags--SPGs-- Stupid People Bags. These people are throwing away free fertilizer! Why not use this fertilizer on their property?!.If you don't have many leaves in your yard, you can collect these bags and have all the leaves you need. If you can't shred them, use them anyway. I don't shred all my leaves. Some I use as mulch in my ornamental beds. The soil under them is black and crumbly and full of earthworms. With the help of the worms, I don't have to fertilize and almost never water these beds.

So, I hope this post has made you look at your leaves through different eyes. Don't forget....Leaves are a gift. Use your leaves!

Soooo......Until next time......HAPPY GARDENING!

Hugelkultur

In a recent post I used a planting technique that is well established in permaculture circles referred to as Hugelkultur ( I also misspelled it). For anyone that may be unfamiliar with Hugelkultur, here is a video that explains a few different ways of using it.

 

 

I think this is a great planting method for sandy soil. 

 

Baby Mulberries

About 2 months ago I was helping a friend in his permaculture style garden. As we were finishing, he trimmed a couple of limbs from a dwarf Mulberry tree and let me have them. I thanked him and brought them home, hoping a could get a cutting to root. I LOVE FREE PLANTS! The next day I cut the limbs into smaller cuttings and planted all of them in one pot. Within 2 weeks I noticed new growth and this is how they look now.

 

If you look closely (click on the picture for a larger image), in the center you can see a red fruit already starting to form. I now have 9 baby Mulberry trees that I can plant around my property. The birds may get all the fruit, but maybe some of them will also help with pest control.

 

 

Soooo..... Until next time.....HAPPY GARDENING!

First tree in the food forest

Today I transplanted a small Fig tree that was in the area where my future vegetable beds will be. This is the third time I have transplanted this tree since I moved here . It is being planted in the area that will become my food forest, so this should be the last time it gets moved.

I'm going to be using hugel culture methods for my food forest. I've read that hugel culture is German for mound culture, which means growing in a mound. This would be accomplished by placing a stack of wood (tree trunks and limbs) on the surface and covering it with a mound of soil. But in Florida's sandy soil, I think a mound will dry out too fast. So I will be burying the wood, then planting on top of it, creating a bed that is only slightly raised.

I started out by digging a planting hole about 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide.

 

 

Then adding 2 layers of well aged fire wood with a rotten stump in the middle.

 

 

 

On top of that I added some rotted moss covered limbs that came out of my Oak trees during some recent high winds. This layer along with the rotted stump, should start soaking up water quickly, to retain water during dry spells.

 

 

 Then I topped that off with some leaves and palm fronds that came out of a load of wood chips.

 

Then I backfilled with soil and planted the Fig tree, creating a watering ring as I watered it in.

Inside the ring I mulched with leaves and twigs from a Wax Myrtle (Myrica cerifera), which is a nitrogen fixing, native plant that grows in this area. I think this should start decomposing by spring, releasing nitrogen into the soil to replace nitrogen that it being used up by the rotting wood. Outside the ring, I mulched with a thick layer of wood chips, creating a bed for this tree that is 6 feet in diameter.

 

 

In the spring I will plant some beneficial plants around it to create a fruit tree guild. By this time next year, we should be able to see the benefits of this permaculture method.

 

 

Sooo.... Until next time....HAPPY GARDENING!

 

 

Orchard of the Future

Hopefully this is how orchards will be in the future. Its starting to catch on.

 

Salvaging Lumber

In a previous post I mentioned salvaging lumber from home building sites. This is a scaffold that I built from lumber that I salvaged from a dumpster on one of these sites. I have to do some repairs on the eaves of this building.

 

 

I also have a large pile of 2x4 and 2x6 lumber stored in this building that I have salvaged. It may be enough to build the framing for a chicken coop. The only thing I'll have to buy is the plywood for the sides. I have some metal roofing that came from a shed I tore down.

 

So, if you need material for a project at your home, hit the construction sites. Just be sure you are taking scraps that are being thrown out. Ask someone that is working on the site. You will be helping to keep this stuff from going to a landfill and saving yourself some money.

Composting 2

As I mentioned in my last post, to build hot compost piles we need to mix brown (carbon) materials with green (nitrogen) materials. Brown materials are usually dead plant matter such as fallen leaves, straw, corn or sunflower stalks, saw dust or aged wood chips. Green materials can be garden waste, kitchen scraps, hedge trimmings, grass trimmings, spent cover crops or manure (even though manure is brown, its considered green because of its high in nitrogen content). All of these will attract earthworms which will build tunnels that help oxygen get into the soil and provide fertilizer with their castings (poop).

Manure is probably the best green material for heating up a pile. But I have read a lot recently about using manure from outside sources. Apparently, if  the livestock has been fed on hay or grass that has been treated with herbicides, these herbicides can pass through the animal and the composting process and effect crops that this compost is used on. So we must make sure the manure we use is free of herbicides

In my piles I try to use material from my own property. For brown material I use oak leaves, pine needles, banana stalks and leaves and palmetto leaves. For green materials I use lots of kitchen scraps and grass clippings. At this time I'm searching for a clean source of manure. Next year I'm going to start planting cover crops to grow materials for feeding the soil and composting.

If all of this seems like too much work, you can just start a pile with what ever you have. Keep adding material as it becomes available until your pile is 3 - 4 feet high, then just let it sit. After a year or so it will decompose.

 If you have an abundance of leaves, just pile them up. After a year or so they will rot down and provide what is referred to as leaf mold.  Leaf mold is a very good soil additive. It may be necessary to dig into the pile to find the leaf mold..... the outside layer doesn't decompose as quickly as the inside. A method to get leaf mold faster is to stuff leaves into a big yard waste bag and add a little water. Store them somewhere out of the way, laying the bags on their side. Then flip the bags over every couple of weeks and make sure there is still water in the bag. This speeds up the decomposition of the leaves and it won't be long till you have a bag of leaf mold. It can be dug into the soil or used as mulch. Either way it is great for your garden. Try some of these methods and see if they help. If you know of other methods, please comment and share them.

Soooo..... Until next time...... HAPPY GARDENING!