"Sometimes i think instead of putting my leaves in the soil saver, I should put the half finished compost in there, and keep refilling the tumbler with leaves and kitchen scraps. "

Bingo! Use the tumbler for hot composting with leaves and kitchen scraps to break them down in six weeks or so to the point where they of no interest to the rats and raccoons. Then transfer to some kind of open bin (or even a pile on bare ground) to finish cold composting for another six to nine months. The goal is to use the expensive and limited real estate in the tumbler to keep scraps out of the paws of varmints but move that material into less expensive space as soon as it looses it's appeal.

Also - worms LOVE shredded leaves. Mix some coffee grounds into those leaves and worms will think they died and went to heaven.

Yay! Thanks for the vote of confidence. Also I didn't know that about worms and leaves! I will save the lil fellas some! (I am wondering if they need to come in to the garage for the colder nights? How cold can worms get?)

KC

I've been gathering 500 to 600 bags of leaves from my neighborhood each of the last four years, particularly since I really don't collect the leaves from the trees in my yard - I just mow them into the grass. My yard has been transformed from rock hard weed lot to very nice yard and garden with soft, rich soil. It is worth picking up those leaves.

Earthworms like organic material whether it is leaves, old coffee grounds, food scraps, or any other type of that material. Earthworms feed on organic material, just as other members of the Soil Food Web do, so the more organic material in the soil (to a point) the more active the Soil Food Web will be, the better the soil will be, the healthier the plants growing in that soil will be.

Many times someone will post here that earthworms love (insert any type of organic material here) when all types of organic material will be greatly appreciated by those wee critters.

Many people still bag their leaves and set them out for the trash.

I have a neighbour a few doors down from whom I get grass clippings in the growing season and now bags of chopped leaves. By the time the snow comes I will have ten bags that I store in the garage.

(The bag of sawdust I get from the nearby HS (their woodshop))

How can you not love a person that not only stores leaves in their garage, but takes pictures of those leaves stored in their garage.

You aren't mocking me Lloyd are you? ;)

"Earthworms like organic material whether it is leaves"

Yes, but the reference prior was to a worm bin, meaning most likely some form of composting worm, not earthworms. Many vermicomposters do not know that compost worms may like leaves, so may be useful info (and note that some don't agree or don't have same experience with leaves in worm bins); composting worms esp in bins have different diet/environment needs and sensitivities than earthworms. Personally only concern I would have with leaves in worm bins would be bugs and critters if bin is indoors, and otherwise, matting of leaves in bin (to which solution is chop 'em up somehow or partially compost). Moisture for leaves in a bin is no different than any other food/bedding combination.

armoured, thank you!

My worm bin is young enough that I only feed it a fistful of kitchen scraps once a week, as recommended by the person who helped me set it up. It's outdoors right now, in a shady spot, but even though we only get a few nights in the 30s, I am thinking I should bring them into the garage maybe...

I am worried about attracting ants to the bin though, and am wondering if a sheltered spot on the porch might be enough?

Does anyone have any advice about this?

KC

If there are not enough worm farmers in this thread to get an answer to that (I'm not one myself), search the forum for "Worms temperature" and I bet you'll find some advice about temps. For sure worms will basically go dormant when it gets that cold. I don't know at what point they just die off. In the ground they can burrow down below the frost line, or die off and let their eggs take over come spring. Which would not work for a worm bin. :-D

Thanks, tox! I did a search and there is vermicomposting forum! I will go hang around there too!

KC

Not a chance! I admire folks who save leaves, kindred spirit kind of thing.

Us Canadians have to stick together Lloyd ;).

I have more pictures of my composting than I do of my family. And don't think I didn't get razzed mercilessly about that!

My municipality has got us working when it comes to waste and recycling - at any given pickup week we can be separating into 5 things: paper recyclables, 'other' recyclables (styrofoam, glass etc), yard waste, organic waste, garbage. Plus I have my own compost bin into which I divert the cream of my organic and yard waste :-) My yard has only so much space and I'm full up already with leaves from my trees and my own organic stuff. I'm not sure why the separation of yard and organic waste, somebody said it was two different processes, but I don't know. But the City gives back compost on pick up days through the year - I'm assuming it's both the yard and organic waste that has been combined at some point. I'm laden with organic material so I've never picked up any of the stuff.

Hamilton has two streams for their organic waste. Yard organics are processed at an outdoor facility and household organics are processed at an indoor facility. The indoor facility probably couldn't handle the volume of material from the yard so they run it as two streams.

I would guess, also, that household food scraps at large scale need to be composted via a different and more thorough process, for safety reasons (i.e. to ensure more heating and more thorough heating for longer, to control potential pathogens) and to thoroughly break down diverse materials, whereas yard leaves don't need as much processing before the compost is ready for use and it would be a waste of energy and labor to send them through the same process.

"I would guess, also, that household food scraps at large scale need to be composted via a different and more thorough process, for safety reasons "

Not at all, as long as the commercial operation is thorough. Our regionally mandated solid waste disposal program has us doing a 3-way sort: all recyclables (metal, glass, some plastic, papers), all compostables (yard waste, kitchen waste, all food waste and papers/boxes associated with food), and finally non-recyclable, non-compostable garbage intended for the landfill. All the compostable material - and that includes all the food/kitchen waste - gets handled by two massive composting 'plants' located at opposite ends of the region. The company that runs these facilities has been around for 75 years but the compost production facilities have been in operation since 1988 and are considered the "poster child" for large scale municipal composting internationally. The output is even tested and certified organic. And is sold to the general public, not donated back, unfortuately.

btw, this solid waste project is not limited to just private homeowners. Most restaurants and other food processing/serving businesses are involved as well. The amount of food waste that gets composted here is maybe just as large as the volume of yard waste!!

Got to brag about my little town and this is probably the only place it will fit: the city crews brought me my annual 6 truckloads of leaves. The windrow is 28 yards long x 5 yards wide x 2 yards high, some compressed like straw bales and some spreading out. I figure it to be between 250 -280 cubic yards. Now that the gate is closed I have a totally private yard so I can pee in a bucket and toss that with yard waste, food scraps, coffee grounds and egg shells on top. When I'm ready I use it as mulch.

Oh wow! I did manage to get a 33 gallon trash can filled with some leaves from a neighbor this morning, and I was feeling so rich until your post, Steve!

I get all the leaves and yard trimmings from an adjacent town as well. The small downside is that mine comes out in bags and I have to empty them.

I used to gather leaves and make a huge pile. A year later when I would spread the pile out to plow them under, a lot of the leaves were still dry.

Later I started mulching the leaves by windrowing them to a center strip. Backing over them with the lawn mower hugely reduced them and I continue mulching them to a fine size. ,I also used to get loads of composted leaf mulch, but it always contained 10% small rocks and I got tired of screening the rocks out.

Steve ........that is a LOT of leaves! How do you use all that material? Do you have a massive garden?

My city dumps leaves from the parks into large (15 x 15 ft) open sided enclosures on our allotments. They're there for the taking. I use hardware cloth which is normally for seedling and plant protection to make a sort of extension wall around the barrow which means I can get three times as many leaves per load. I use them as mulch rather than an ingredient in the compost heaps. This year they've also dumped a whole bay of woodchips.

Kitchen waste is collected weekly and goes off for composting but we don't get it back. It's sold and helps reduce our council tax.

Harry, it is a hobby and the city makes this part painless. I only have 1500 sq. ft. in gardens and mulch around 9 fruit trees but anything left over becomes leaf mold. Neighbors come over to get organic veggies and sometimes mulch or compost to try their hand at gardening. I mulch a foot thick around established veggies and corn stalks trying to discourage Wisteria and Morning Glories with limited success but haven't resorted to a 'cide indoors or out for 35 years. The pottery clay I started with in my NC yard is now black soil I can dig elbow deep with just my fingers.

Leaves change form but never go to waste.

I think people are starting to realize the value of all those leaves in the fall. I've started seeing people raking their leaves INTO their garden beds instead of out of them and off to the dump. Think you've taken it to a whole new level . I wish I had 1500 sq.ft of veg gardens!

Harry

Lots of people out in the country in my area will burn their leaves in the fall. It just seems ludicrous to me. These are people with huge yards and even multi-acre lots, and they don't have room for a leaf pile? Or just throw them back into the woods? Argh.

I'm a member of the Xerces Society and they have a "Leave the Leaves" campaign in the fall, on account of invertebrates needing homes and food!

I think there is an increasing trend of people appreciating the value of keeping the leaves on the landscape, but it's still a drop in the bucket. My own dad and stepmother complain every year about how much work it is to rake up their leaves. I tried asking "What happens if you just leave them where they are?" but I got something vague about how they tried mulching them once but it "wasn't good for the lawn." Argh.

Tox, don't have to worry about people in the PNW burning their fall leaves.........they're always too wet! Like trying to light a glass of water on fire!

On the other hand, there's no need to wet them down before making a large hot compost pile.

I bet they rot down superbly with all that moisture and soil teeming with fungi up there. :-]

I just put a post a few days ago on Nextdoor.com asking for yard leaves and debri, offering free pickup and got great donations within minutes. They were happy and I was so happy. Worked out great.

Great post which begs me to ask this question. Every fall I chop up my leaves and spread them into my gardens. I almost always have about 10 extra bags that stay outdoors all winter uncovered and in the spring I will chop them up and again spread them in the garden. Are these overwintered leaves still beneficial and if so are they less beneficial than in the fall leaves.

They may be even better than the fresher fall leaves! They are aged into what is known as leaf mould, which is a valuable commodity and offered for sale in the UK. So they are semi-composted and able to release nutrient faster than the 'fresh' fall crop. But just like compost, they are really a soil conditioner rather than a nutrient source or fertilizer.

Leaf Mould

It really takes at least a year if not two to make leave mould, but yes of course they're still beneficial. I stopped keeping them in bags though, they go in a wire fence bin and get rained and snowed on so they can start breaking down. In spring I use them as mulch or mix with fresh grass clippings to make compost.

I used to collect bagged leaves from our little town. I'd race to get home, change clothes and get out to make my rounds before the sanitation guys would come by the next day to collect them with the trash. I complained, but nobody would listen. Some years I'd collect 1000 bags. 2014, I didn't know they bought a vacuum truck, and I wasn't finding as many bagged leaves. I saw them out one day and asked about them. They were dumping them in a hole in the woods somewhere. I complained to town council and explained exactly why they should be bring them to me instead of dumping them in a hole. Seriously. We went back and forth. Time passed. Then I got an email with an image of my property plat attached and a contract. They wanted to know exactly where they should dump the leaves. So I circled it, signed the contract and waited. 2015/16, they started. I think I got 25 loads that year. 15 the next season. 25 loads this year. I think they put more in a load now than they did earlier. The pile is HUGE! this year. The other leaves have finally rotted down enough that I'll be spreading them this year as mulch around tomatoes and peppers and anywhere else I can find to put them. The neighbors must think I'm crazy. I don't care. The curious thing is that I was talking to the workers one day as they were emptying and it turns out that they aren't allowed to dump on the land they were before, so they would be looking for somewhere to take these if it weren't for me. This is SOOO much easier than racing around trying to find bags and then having to dump them. Some I never even emptied, so I have plastic shreds scattered around. This is much better.

Aside from cornering the leaf market, I have an unofficial agreement with the local horse farm to haul their manure. Every 2 weeks, I'll go get 24, 36, 48 skid steer scoops of the stuff. Just depends on how the weather is and how much they have to keep the horses inside. I can haul 12 or 13 scoops at a time, so 2, 3, 4 loads every 2 weeks. Sometimes 3 weeks. Most of that manure sits in a pile working off. Some of it gets dumped and turned in directly. It's perfect stuff. Mixed with wood chips that look like chainsaw chips, not the larger shavings that they used to have. And straw/hay of varying kinds. Plus, once in a while, we clean out the huts where they put the feed hay in the pastures. I can haul 2 or 3 loads of hay/straw/manure/urine when we do that. All this would go to waste if I didn't take it.

It's taken a while to get to this point, but I'm thoroughly enjoying myself now.

What is all this compost eventually used for? Do you sell your harvest?

Yikes, it sounds like an industrial sized composting operation you have there! I guess as long as you're using it onsite there's no problem but if you do start selling compost there might be state/federal regulators who will say you need some permits. Meantime, happy rotting!

What might be the reasons to prefer a leaf compost over other types of compost, for a garden hedge or tree?

In the San Francisco Bay Area, is there any garden supply vendor selling a leaf compost?

I don't know any numbers but I would guess leaf compost might be a little lower in nutrients and trace minerals than a compost made of a variety of ingredients including more greens. I can't swear to that though. Texturally, it is extremely fluffy and is an excellent soil texture improver. If I was improving a really poor soil (especially clay) prior to planting, I'd want it if I could get my hands on it. If I was just top dressing around existing plants, any compost would do.

Whether you could find it...doubtful. Likely the leaves in your area go into mixed compost operations. I live in leaf alley in mid-MO and have never seen leaf compost for sale.

When improving soil, any compost is better than no compost at all, and the differences between different types are much smaller than the difference between compost and no compost. Use what you can find.

These days, animal manures can contain traces of persistent herbicides that can potentially affect your plants. These specific herbicides are sometimes used on hay and feed crops fed to animals. The stomachs of some animals do a better job of breaking down these chems than other animals (cows have 4 stomachs, for example, horses... one.) Also, how the manure was handled afterwards - in the composting process - can also affect how quickly and efficiently these chems breakdown. Veggie gardens have the concerns of salmonella and other illnesses which can affect humans. However, as long as you aren't rolling around in it, and wash your hands after working around manures that may not have been composted properly, this isn't really a concern with trees and hedges (just be aware that young children aren't always as cautious.)

Leaf composts are also easily made at home. Other types of composts must be bought, or at least, transported from large facilities - and this has costs.

Other than that, composts from some sources can have 'better' nutrient profiles, but this is often so slight it's not really too much of a concern unless the composting process was very well manged - and even then, the differences aren't enough to really be concerned about, especially for hedges and trees.

Tox typed faster that me... what he said lol.

Leaf compost is easily made but other types must be bought? Nah! I've been making my own compost from kitchen scraps, garden trimmings, grass clippings and leaves for 30 years. Not hard at all. Very easy to do and when I tested it against a bunch of commercial ones, the homemade was top of the heap on NPK, trace minerals AND total organic carbon content.

Manure compost of course would require a manure source, but if one really wanted to, they could find a horse farm or other source and bring home a truckload of bedding/manure for composting. I've done that too. Persistent herbicides are a thing, and if I was doing that today, I'd ask where the manure came from and whether the farmer is using them.

E coli and salmonella should not be a problem if the manure is aerobically composted for a sufficient time. I wouldn't put random 'manure pile' stuff on my vegetable garden because it is often not managed as a compost pile with sufficient air and turning. I'd compost it first. Unless I was doing it in the fall, in which case it would have months to work itself out. I did once get some stuff that was so old, it was like a foot-thick peat deposit next to the barn. THAT went straight into the garden and I grinned the entire time. :-D

Yep, I left out the word... 'often'. :-(

"Leaf composts are also easily made at home. Other types of composts must
OFTEN be bought, or at least, transported from large facilities - and this
has costs."

A home compost pile is usually a type of 'leaf compost' as leaves are usually one of the most-added ingredients. Without leaves, some other carbon-rich material needs to be used, and most other ingredients must be sourced outside the home and property. Besides, leaves have that wonderful property of becoming 'composted' into leaf mold just by letting them sit in a pile.

Nobody who has paper and/or cardboard boxes around needs to go short of carbon for their compost.

Leaves are certainly a common ingredient but I maintain that true leaf compost (leaf mould) is made of pure leaves, which compost very slowly. A green/brown mix makes fabulous compost (don't get me wrong, they're both great) but if you look at a shovelful of each, side by side, they are distinctly different.

@toxcrusadr I have read something similar about leaf compost being very high quality, but it is strange no one offers that as a product. I think the problem is supply chain. Most compost vendors are partnered with garbage companies and are composting the green waste bin. They have no easy way to get leaves from trees as a separate product. I only have pine needles here, no leaves, so that means I will not compost my own.

I make leaf mould in three years without tending it in any way. I could make it in two, if I flipped it occasionally and watered it.

Leaf mould takes so long to make, so why would industrial composting operations spend the time, when they can make and sell regular compost so much faster? I think that's why you don't see it in a bag. It would cost 10x as much and no one would buy it.

Tox, I suspect that literally all of the people who value leaf compost /mould most highly are precisely those who know how to make it themselves. And are patient. And frugal.

I tried making leaf mold with silver maple and oak leaves piled into a 6’ diameter bin made of chicken wire. I attempted to maintain the moisture level but after two years I ended up running the leaves through my shredder.

i can shred a large volume (yards) of leaves and have them broken down in about six weeks in cool weather. The red wigglers did the rest.