Beat the recession: compost!

This weekend many - if not most - Canadians who have deciduous trees to deal with are going to be raking leaves. More still will put a pumpkin outside the front door to decorate for Halloween. Both of these situations provide an excellent opportunity to take small steps in your ongoing effort to save the environment and save money (the recession buster!).

First: the leaves.

For every large, leaf filled paper bag that I see out at the curb in our neighborhood, I see between $2 and $4. How is that? The value of the raw organic material in each bag is the perfect amendment to your garden. I don't use the word 'perfect' often - I value this word, and as such, apply it here because there is nothing that will come closer to perfection than a garden that has been fed a steady diet of fallen leaves over a period of years. A full bag of your fallen leaves will equal more or less one commercial bag of compost in size, weight and 'soil nutrition'.

Many of the people that put their leaves out for the municipality to pick up (without charging them or getting a credit on your tax bill) will also go to their local garden retailer come spring and buy... Get this... Compost! Or triple mix, or top soil or what-have-you. They will pay between $2 and $4 for each bag...go figure.

Add to this, the cost of the bag itself... I saw 5 for $2.89 on special this week... That is 58 cents per bag that you can add to the cost of taking them to the curb.

So, what to do with your leaves?

1. Rake leaves off of your lawn.
Leaves that are left on the lawn reduce the exposure of the sun to the lawn itself, thereby causing the lawn to go yellow and die.

2. Rake leaves ON to your garden beds.
Leaves provide a natural insulation over the surface of the soil in your perennial, annual and vegetable beds. This will promote the activity of beneficial insects (namely earth worms), eliminate the heaving of young perennials out of the soil and will minimize winter damage.

3. How deep should the leaves be?
Pile the leaves up to 50 cm (18 inches) thick, if they are dry at the time of raking or 20 cm (8 inches) if they are wet. If you don't want them to blow away, hose them down as you pile them on the soil.

4. What will happen to the leaves?
As we experience freeze/thaw cycles the leaves will mat down in a thin layer that will prevent the germination of weed seeds come spring and will reduce the need for watering - by you - until early summer. In the mean time the aforementioned earth worms - those foot soldiers of the garden - will come to the surface of the soil, pull them down deep into the earth, eat them and convert them - hold on for this - into nitrogen rich earth worm castings (you may wish to call them something else...).

5. Alternatives?
a. Go ahead and put all of your leaves into the paper bags but only fill them 3/4 full. Add some water from the hose if the leaves are dry at the time. Turn the top down to hold the contents in place, lay the full bag down on the soil at the back of your yard, and lay more full bags on top. Go as high as you wish. Stack them like cord wood.
Come spring, your leaves will be in the early stages of decomposition and ready to spread on your veggie garden, to fill the bottom 1/3 of containers (the remaining 2/3 will be filled with fresh potting soil) or given away to a needy gardener...(your local community garden?).

b. Fill your composter. You WILL fill it rather quickly: this only works if you have just a few leaves or lots of composting units. Personally I reserve the composting units in my yard for kitchen scraps and seasonal yard waste like spent tomato plants, petunias and the like.

As for the Halloween pumpkin: after Saturday night's festivities, cut it into pieces using a sharp spade or shovel and put them into your composter or onto your garden where they will 'melt' down into just about nothing. Pumpkins are 99% water, so leaving that at the curb for waste pick up makes no sense at all.

Putting Canadian municipalities out of the composting business is becoming a theme here - in my opinion, worse things could happen.

Next week: the do and don't of composting...

Keep your knees dirty.

Mark

For more information on this topic go to www.compost.org or www.markcullen.com.

Question of the Week
Q/ How do I store Dahlia tubers for next year?
A/ Wait until the foliage has turned brown in the fall. Cut the foliage down, leaving a few inches of stem above ground.
Dig around the plant carefully to avoid damaging the tubers.
Lift the clump and gently shake out excess soil.
Wash the tubers gently. Lay the tubers on sheets of newspaper and allow them to air dry in a sunny location for 1 week. Store tubers in a cardboard box lined with newspaper. Store in a cool, dark, dry location.