See me almost waist deep in leaves? I’m sure you have a nice leaf dump, too.

Oh. Houzz won’t let me post all my braggy pictures. I’ll have to describe them. All right, so the next is a picture of my yard filled with fresh bags of leaves. The really conceited part, though, is that you can see some 2018 bags of leaves in the background. I would have titled the picture something like: oh! The excess!

The fourth picture that was supposed to make you green with envy was taken from my deck. in this fourth photo, you would be looking down right now at my garden paths covered with eight new inches of fresh, teeny—-so especially attractive—-wood chips. Three truckloads so far.

You’d be thinking right now, if Houzz let me post my pictures, “Wow! How many bags of pine needles did that girl get!! She’s really something, isn’t she?”

This picture has you thinking, “MORE SEAWEED?!” Yawn, “This is getting boring.”

I am thinking, " She’s really something, isn’t she "...I'm jealous of your variety. I get lot,s of leaves, kitchen scraps and lots of fish scraps in the winter. I've read not to use the fish scraps but it works for me. You wouldn't believe the red worms come spring.

I'm still planting broccoli out - it was in the nineties until a couple of weeks ago. I plant my garlic between Thanksgiving and Christmas when I feel the urge. Still have 80-100 cubic yards of leaf mold left to me by the city, soon I'll e-mail them and request another 5 truckloads that they vacuum up off the curbs. They don't start until November. Starting to get cold here though, so once broccoli is harvested and put in the freezer and Christmas is done my backpack and I have a ticket to Guayaquil, Ecuador and we'll wander around four countries in South America until returning early March to start seeds and family birthdays for another year.

Your turn Annpat.

old__dirt, I knew you wouldn’t leave me hanging. Fish scraps? Why would anyone think they were anything but manna to the pile? I actually was going to lie and say, “Here’s a picture of me with the 100 pounds of tuna tails I harvested off Mt. Desert yesterday.” (I swear, though, all the other braggings are strictly true!) You are inspiring me. I’m wondering just how humiliated I would be to stop in at McGlaughlin’s Seafood tomorrow and ask if they have fish parts. (Like looking foolish has ever been a problem for me.)

STEVE! I wish I’d never brought this up now! I got a little disgruntled hearing about “e-mailing the city” for leaf mould—-I was happy for you, but surprised to be so soundly trumped—-but the part about South America took the smile right off my face. Who will take care of your cats? Your four remaining hens? What if your furnace fails in your absence?

Sob. Are you camping?

i love camping.

i don’t even feel like telling anyone, now, about the stuff I’m going to remove from my henhouse today.

Boy, what you need on that beach is a tractor with a front loader adapted with some kind of a fork tine arrangement for picking up the seaweed without disturbing the sand beneath. It would take about 5 mins to fill a pickup truck!

I'm jealous you have beaches and seaweed.

I harvested a year-old pile today (because I need the bin!) and hit huge basketball sized clumps of red worms. There are far more worms in this compost than in another bin I emptied last week. This is my house bin, so more coffee grounds may make the difference, I guess.

Beautiful, may I ask your location and do you turn your piles often or cold compost? For years I did an active hot composting but as age moved in, i am content to let nature take it's course as it sees fit.

Tox, that seaweed rolled up in the “bombogenesis” last week, and by “rolled up,” I mean it really did. Long bunches were coiled together like a thick, heavy braid making it a little difficult to heft over the side of the truck. The seaweed came up clean, though; sand wasn’t really a problem. It was so lovely fresh, it looked and smelled almost edible.I took a friend, and she bagged hers. She claimed she only wanted a little, but she begged me to take her back the next day. There was a man collecting his seaweed using a hay fork, but I thought that might be hard lifting.

old__dirt, I spend most of the fall gathering leaves, seaweed, grass clippings, etc. I go home from scavenging and build large, instant piles from those stockpiled items. I aim to fill 6 or 7 round hardware cloth compost bins each fall. I am 66 and starting to worry about overtaxing my elbows, myself, so I will turn the piles for a while—-maybe three times each—-adding greens during the flipping if the piles are cool, then just let them go untouched until the following June. I mainly use compost for mulching, so I’ll use it at any stage if I must.

I’m in Downeast Maine near Acadia National Park. I can see Mt. Desert while I’m gathering my seaweed.

Those worms are impressive! I scored a 10 lb bag of grounds at Starbucks the other day. I never go there but was in with friends and they had two bags under a sign free for the taking. Would have grabbed both but it was 10 blocks to the car and I wasn't that desperate. :-P

Ever see a video of those factory fishing ships that put out the half mile long nets? They come up like a tube full of fish. Winched up by a huge winch, the fish emptied out into the bowels of the ship for processing, and the empty net is wound onto a big spool. Couldn't help thinking of that kind of arrangement when you said the seaweed is rolled up into a cohesive thing. Or, the way a windrow of raked hay is pulled up by the harvester and wound into a giant cylinder.

Is beach seaweed any use to the ecosystem? Are there critters who eat it or hide in it or anything?

Beautiful earthworms, annpat, and I too am jealous of your location on the beach. You are a dynamo compared to me. The city is grateful for another place to dump their leaves so that is what I mulch with. I have 3/4 acre with two large gardens that feed my grown children and their families, in return they feed my cats when I'm gone. Extra food is given to neighbors and nothing that comes into my yard on two legs or four should leave hungry. I camp or sleep on trails or in hostels or sometimes strangers who invite me into their homes and I've slept on many dirt floors. I'm 70 now so it helps if I have something to pull myself vertical on. Most of my trips are to the tropics!

Oh, that sounds great! I’ll think of you when Maine is frozen from stem to stern in two months. I’ve been eyeing, lately, the feral cat I got stuck with seven years ago, wondering about his age and longevity. Animals are keeping me home bound.

tox, the areas I gather seaweed are public town beaches, and I’ve heard the cleanup is encouraged there, but I did wonder today where the seaweed would go tonight when we’re getting a storm and there might be a high tide. Presumably to some other eco system that would benefit from it. The only creatures I see in washed up seaweed are sand fleas, but I’m sure there‘s all kinds of organisms that do depend on it. I camp on islands and we don’t touch so much as a twig or remove a clump of seaweed even from under our tents. Live, rooted, growing seaweed protects, hides and feeds larger organisms like lobster, crabs and snails, so even though a small amount is legal to harvest, I don’t.

I’m kind of torn about the seaweed. I justify my hauls because if I don’t take it , another gardener would, but it never occurred to me until today that a lot might get pulled back off the beaches at night and distributed elsewhere less public., .

That said...if you see a blue truck loaded to the gunnels with Maine seaweed next week headed south on I-95, it’s probably me delivering a housewarming present to my nephew and wife in Virginia. I even threw in a few dead, bright red lobster shells—-a nod to the holiday season.

annpat, I want an Auntie like you! ;)

I’m a great aunt! Literally.

I'll bet you are! I'm going to one up on ya, I'm a great-great uncle. Hence my handle old_dirt.