It’s that time of year again. Farmers toil in the fields, families meander through corn mazes and neighborhoods prepare for masked and hooded goblins and superheroes. Everything becomes pumpkin-flavored and — cough, cough — people start burning leaves.
Although many municipalities ban leaf burning, it can often go on unabated, especially in rural areas. If you are a leaf burner, this article is for you.
Where some view fall leaves as a nuisance that must be disposed of, I see fall leaves as free nutrients for plants. Locked inside that leaf are nutrients ready to be recycled back into the soil. Trees pull that energy from the soil, use it in all types of plant growth and development, and then the leaves fall to the ground to return some of that energy to the soil. Burning leaves rob the soil of that recycled energy.
What is a homeowner to do with all these leaves? Here are some ways to use your leaves as a resource for your yard.
Leaves are a part of the natural habitat of a forest. In natural wooded areas, there is no need to manage the leaves. They will decompose on their own and return nutrients to the soil microbes, which in turn will support the plants.
Lawns are where we often find ourselves putting in the work on leaf removal. A thick layer of leaves will smother the lawn if they mat down. A quick way to deal with leaves on the lawn is to shred them with a mower.
Shredded leaves can benefit a lawn. Research from Michigan State University shows that shredded leaves in turf add organic matter and cover bare patches of soil, blocking potential germinating weed seeds. If the leaves are too much for the mulching mower, we can pile them up or bag them to be used in other parts of the yard.
Depending on your preferred maintenance style, fall leaves can be left in landscape beds until they decompose, or clean out the leaves in the spring. The leaves act as a mulch and insulator for your landscape plants. Leaves can be spread out in the spring so perennial plants don’t smother.
My preferred mulch for landscape beds and the vegetable garden is shredded fall leaves. This is a great way to use excess leaves from the lawn. The shredded leaf mulch decomposes by the end of the summer, and at that point, I’m left leafless, anxiously awaiting autumn.
The goal of using fall leaves in the landscape is to return nutrients to the soil. Composting is a great way to expedite that process. Leaves collected off the lawn with a mower have both shredded leaves (carbon) and grass clippings (nitrogen), which are perfect ingredients for a compost pile. Compost is valuable to soils of all types, hence the nickname “black gold.”
In a successful compost pile, you need carbon and nitrogen, ideally at a ratio of 30:1. Carbon is your fall leaves and will be the bulk of a compost pile. Nitrogen is the fuel in the composting process. Sources of nitrogen are lawn clippings, vegetable scraps, coffee grounds or any living green plant material. Some home composters will add nitrogen fertilizer.
Hopefully, if you’re a leaf burner, I’ve stayed your hand from lighting the match this fall. Every soil benefits from compost, and nearly every yard needs mulch somewhere. Consider the underutilized source of fall leaves to meet your soil’s needs.
