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Old November 5, 2011   #1
lakelady
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Default Compost Ingredients

I have always had a compost pile that mostly held grass clippings and some other stuff from the yard. This year I'm going to shred many leaves to compost because I can't take raking and bagging it all anymore. In taking a more serious look at what compost should be, I've read you need greens and browns. Well my question is this. Why are fallen leaves considered browns if they were once greens? With all of my huge oak trees, I have lots and lots of browns and I'll never have enough "greens" to make a balanced mix if this is the case. Hope this isn't a dumb question.
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Old November 5, 2011   #2
Elizabeth
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If you have too many brown leaves to mix in with your greens, then you should definitely make some leaf mold. Sounds grody, but it's really good for your plants. If you leave them whole it will take 2 years to mature, if you shred them, it will take 1 year. There are lots of ways to do it, in piles, in bins or some people bag them up, poke holes in the bag and stick under a tree for a couple of years. The hardest part of the whole process is wetting them really well down the first time. Once they start rotting a bit it's easier to keep them moist.
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Last edited by Elizabeth; November 5, 2011 at 10:55 PM. Reason: spelling
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Old November 6, 2011   #3
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Amen great explanation. Ed
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Old November 6, 2011   #4
RayR
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Green leaves like grass clippings retain more Nitrogen than dry leaves. Dry leaves do contain a small amount of Nitrogen and will decompose naturally themselves but it would take a much longer time without human intervention by adding additional Nitrogen sources. "Greens" are not necessarily green in color, they can be other things naturally high in Nitrogen like coffee grounds, tea or manure. Bacteria do most of the work in decomposing organic matter and they consume carbon compounds and Nitrogen compounds for food and reproduction. Adding "greens" is just giving them a greater supply of Nitrogen to help them grow and reproduce faster than they would in nature.
Elizabeth is right about shredding the fall leaves, this gives a greater surface area for the microbes to do their work and also increases the air space in your pile which benefits the bacteria again since they are aerobic and need oxygen to survive , whole leaves will mat down and leave less air space.
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Old November 6, 2011   #5
habitat_gardener
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My aunt in Plainfield, NJ, had the darkest, most fertile soil in her garden, thanks to leaf mold. She and my uncle had an acre with huge beech and tulip trees, and they raked all the leaves to the edge of the yard in the fall. Then she just harvested leaf mold as needed.
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Old November 6, 2011   #6
lakelady
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Last year I bought a leaf shredder because the volume of leaves I have is overwhelming. I can't get the mower onto most areas of the yard. I used some for the compost pile and bagged the rest. To put it in perspective, most years, I've bagged 80-100 bags of leaves between Fall and Spring (the trees close to the lake don't lose leaves till December because of the more temperate climate down there and I just cannot do them all in one season). Two trees were taken down in the side yard this year, which reduces the raking considerably there and I've got a double trunk tree I'm hoping to take down next year. As you can see, I have TONS of leaves. While I don't have an area I can just pile them up in, I can put some bags somewhere and let them rot after shredding. I used shredded leaves as mulch in one bed where I have pine trees and shrubs. I'm just going to do that again too, but I really have to figure out where to put all these leaves.

Okay, so leaf mold is essentially compost without the greens to help them break down faster? Now I get it.

It just occurred to me also that the mountain across the street which my neighbor keeps designated as a tree farm (its just woods) probably has TONS of great compost I can help myself too. We have a lot of rock and you can't really dig on the hills without hitting a lot of stones, but there's dirt there too. Maybe today I'll go dig some up and put it on my garden to winter over .

Thank you!
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Old November 6, 2011   #7
ddsack
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Quote:
Last year I bought a leaf shredder because the volume of leaves I have is overwhelming. I can't get the mower onto most areas of the yard.
Just curious as to what kind/model of leaf shredder you are using, and are you happy with it? I have the same problem with not being able to easily get a mower to where most of the leaves are. We are surrounded by natural woods of aspen, oak, maple and basswood in the back of the property, so I have all the leaves I could ever want. But it's brushy, uneven ground, full of sticks and rotting logs, so we don't mow or rake there. Luckily our front yard is open grass with just some rows of big spruce, so not much fall clean up to worry about there.

When I have time, I rake all the leaves I can gather onto a tarp and haul it to a corner where I try to have a mulch pile, but it takes a long time for whole leaves to decompose. I would consider buying a leaf shredder, but not sure an electric one would be heavy duty enough. Don't really want a gas one, because it takes more maintenance and I'd be more likely to use it if all I had to do was plug it in and do a few batches at a time, as opposed to hauling around gas cans and cleaning filters and spark plugs etc. Any advice or experience with leaf shredders is welcome!
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Old November 6, 2011   #8
kath
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We've been using a Flowtron electric leaf shredder for about 15 years and use it for LOTS of leaves each year. You need to be careful about not shoving wet leaves through it and we try to remove as many sticks as is reasonable so as not to shred the cutting line so quickly, but overall we're happy with the machine considering the small investment we made.

We make round wire bins that are about 4' in diameter and 4' tall and fill them with wetted, shredded leaves to make our leaf mold in the fall. We also use shredded leaves as a mulch for brassicas, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes after hilling, in walkways, etc. In the fall, after all the cleanup, liming, tilling and such is done, we cover the garden with a light coating of shredded leaves. The worms absolutely love it and at the end of the season you can see the worm casings covering the areas that have been mulched with leaves.

I don't put shredded leaves in with my compost anymore because I read that they don't decompose in the same way and will slow down the decomposition of the other materials. I'd welcome any feedback on that issue.
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Old November 6, 2011   #9
RayR
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With leaf mold, you are encouraging fungal action to break down the leaves into humus, molds like damp, dark conditions to thrive best. It doesn't necessarily break down faster compared to making compost.
Leaf mold is similar to peat moss, doesn't have much if any NPK value itself, is mostly spongy carbon fibers that have good water retention properties and helps hold nutrients present in the soil.
Compost is similar to leaf mold but since it is made from multiple sources of browns and greens, it has a higher nutrient content than leaf mold.
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Old November 6, 2011   #10
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Very good explanations of composting and leaf mold. I have been an advocate of composting for many years. My chipper/shredder is a 10hp Troy-Bilt that is used for chipping up trees and limbs and shredding leaves. It is a powerful piece of machinery that makes short work of leaves and reduces volume tenfold. The leaves are mostly oak, elm, ash and catalpa and get tilled into the garden and mixed into the compost pile as browns. The left over piles turn into leaf mold and get added to the garden and flower beds as needed.
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Old November 6, 2011   #11
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I know some people won't like it, but I've used urea in the past when I can't get enough greens for my compost pile. I haven't needed to for some time, but a pile of mostly leaves, a bit of dirt and a bit of urea will heat up and break down quite nicely.

EDIT: Just realized this is the Gardening in the Green area. So never mind the urea bit (well synthetic anyhow, there are of course other ways to get urea). I usually just till the leaves into my garden plots in the fall now anyhow.
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Old November 6, 2011   #12
Tom C zone 4/5
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Urea aside, any herbivor manure will do in its place.
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Old November 6, 2011   #13
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To be honest, I wasn't sure how well it would work, and I didn't want one of those huge shredder/chipper things because I don't have space to store it. However, 2 years running and having the most trees in my neighborhood, it's held up quite well. I will warn you, the thing is LOUD when it's running, but it works very well. Paper bags are a pain to get underneath it, so you have to fold them over a few times, but once you get your rhythmn going its pretty good.

I can't haul my leaves anywhere because my property runs downhill to the lake, so every year, I have to carry leaves UPHILL to get them to the road. Across the street is all uphill too, so I can't dump leaves there either. It's a massive undertaking to do leaves every year here, so I have to find better solutions since I'm not getting any younger and it takes everything out of me to do it every weekend in the Fall, and then many more come spring.

This is the one I have :
WORX WG430 13 amp Electric Leaf Mulcher/Shredder

It's lightweight and easy to carry up and down the stairs so I can bring it to wherever the leaves are.


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Old November 6, 2011   #14
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Oak leaves have an NPK of 0.8/0.35/0.2 compared to fresh cow manure which is 0.29/0.25/0.1, so leaf mold is actually a pretty good source of nutrients - and it's consistent. Compost, on the other hand, can be all over the map depending on it components - i.e. garbage in...garbage out. I know a lot of folks who use nothing other than leaf mold for fertility.
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Old November 6, 2011   #15
RayR
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That looks like a nice little unit to do the job. Shredded leaves sure beat whole ones for making compost, leaf mold and mulch and it's amazing how little space shredded leaves take up. The WORX unit claims 11:1, which sounds about right for shredded leaves.
I use a Black and Decker electric leaf blower/shredder, I only have 3 big maple trees, a chestnut tree and some smaller trees to deal with plus whatever blows in from the neighbors trees so it works great for my needs. I couldn't imagine trying to pile up whole leaves anyways to compost in my yard, I don't have that kind of space to spare. Whatever extra I can't fit in my 2 compost bins, I just pile up in my garden beds and leave it till spring.. The worms love it and there are always abundant worm casting under the piles in spring.
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