I totally understand spouses and neighbors not buying in if it's not something they enjoy. I tip my hat to the hubby above that pitches in even though he would rather watch the game. It's a sign of marital harmony to be cherished. Limited space and/or lack of place to conceal bins is mentioned more than other issues so I'm sure tips for handling those are as welcome as how to and best practices. I wouldn't allow a fruitless mulberry to be planted in front of my house if it was free but I planted half a dozen toward the rear of my yard. They grow fast and are naturally bushy which translates to a perfect screen for my "things". Hidden behind them is my project farm implements, stockpiles of wood,clippings and leaves. Some material remains there until finished or after reduced in volume batches are used as mulch or mixed with richer material for composting. Someone above mentioned bagged leaves in garage being displeasing for their spouse. If there's a place outdoors where bags can be stored, leaves will compost inside. Not as rapid as mixed with greens and kept moist but you will be surprised how much in a few months. I would suggest adding a scoop of soil and at least wet them initially. Ann mentioned earlier how well it worked for her. As age,health and other commitments limit ability to work at this routinely I have started concentrating more on hügelkultur beds. You can hire teenagers to dig,move material,build retainers and other manual labor. Once in place hugy beds are very productive,long lived and low maintenance. Now all that action that took place above ground is taking place out of sight underground without effort by gardener. (:

Klem, My spouse’s willingness to help in the garden is something I really appreciate. And he does enjoy being outdoors, we both recognize though that I am the one with the passion for it, so I try to limit the amount of involvement I hope for. And he’s not someone who sees a plant and says…’oh wow, isn’t that beautiful.’ I would have focused on adding plants he liked. But I did finally figure out that he very much enjoys fragrance in the garden. So I have focused on adding plants that are fragrant which has increased his connection to the garden. And he has a sense of humor about what he considers the eccentricity of storing bags of leaves in the garage. We do joke about lots of things like that. [g]

What is beautiful to him is a park or a golf course. That appeals to him. A beautiful beach. All things we share so there is a lot of overlap there.

We had a work area on the north of our garage along a lot line with a fence. But, that is the main entrance to the back and everyone had to walk past the mess every time they came into the back. We just had a new fence installed and I decided it was time to clean up that area and make it more pleasing to the eye and relocate the work area. We have piles of pavers and rocks and bricks and we store a dwindling pile of bagged mulch over the season. Then the two compost bins which I haven’t figured out where to relocate those.

I used to have a big wire bin for compost under a Maple tree, but the roots just climbed right up into it and made the compost useless. Nothing but tree roots. So I switched to the smaller bins that are emptied much sooner.

I am with you with enthusiasm for the Hugelkultur beds.

Good soil being produced out of sight and in the area where it will end up without having to move it again, once it is done. But where do you find teenagers to hire?! I’ve never been able to find that. I try to hire someone every season just about and it’s not easy. We end up having to pay a fairly steep hourly rate for anyone capable.

Okay, I'm over the bread thing, Dee. I could sense you felt bad about it.

The very best time of year, the first dump day after Halloween in a small, unregulated town:

Ok that's a civilized collection, I was expecting a sea of pumpkins reaching past the horizon.

Prairiemoon work with staff at local schools to find well behaved kids needing work. Many kids are willing to work but parents are understandably uneasy alowing kids be with strangers in and around their homes. To reassure parents of kid's safty it might be necessary to invite mom or dad to bring their son/daughter and another kid(s) then stay for coffee or visit getting to know you. It is good practice to ALWAYS let dad,mom and older siblings know they are welcome to bring snacks,drinks or just drop by UNANNOUNCED any time their child is at your place. I once had a lady that brought her granddaughters over then stayed to work on her computer while kids helped me. A dad once set up his personal camera while his son and another boy helped me construct a building over Summer break. Who doesn't have a Ring they could move?

Oh, regarding that invasive Maple tree , "what enters my compost stays in my compost" (Olddirt 2023)

Thanks, Klem - It's hard to believe, but the day after I posted that, I was walking the neighborhood and noticed a poster on a telephone post offering to rake leaves. I emailed the person and turns out it was a 19 year old in college, living at home and needing some extra money. She came over on Friday and did a number of things around the garden for us. What are the odds? lol And she only lived 3 blocks away!

PM2 I don't get much help in the garden. Occasionally my husband will allow me to drag him out to help lift a big stone out of the ground, or move a heavy pot, but that's about it. Since he lost his full-time job a few years back he does now do the leaves so that is a huge help at this time of year.

So one year I posted an ad - geez, can't remember where..... was it physical (store community board??) or virtual (craigslist or that ilk???).... anyway I got a young teen answer the ad, and his parents would drop him off. He was a good kid but unfortunately not really into gardening. But he did provide some help, and there were times I gave him other, non-gardening chores I had so while he did them I could devote time to garden chores. Like one afternoon he cleaned my car, inside and out lol. Anyway, you never know who you might find if you ask, and I'm glad to see you found some help!

I actually started my gardening business by hanging a flyer on a community board in a grocery store (IDK if they even exist anymore!). I was not at all surprised by how many people contacted me saying it was so hard to find garden help. Only lawn guys, mow & blow types, who they didn't trust in their gardens and who didn't even do stuff like weeding etc.

I've thought of going the school route at times too. Actually, what I wanted to do was contact the local garden club and suggest they start a program with the schools to get kids to help out organizations and people in the neighborhoods. For pay of course. (Although our high school requires volunteer time and kids are always looking for places to volunteer. But they could have them volunteer for non-profits, elderly or differently-abled people etc, and then go on to work for pay after they complete their hours - can you tell I've given this some thought, lol?) I figured a school might not trust me, but if the garden club had an official program and vetted people etc it might be more amenable to parents. I never followed up though because I figured the garden club would pressure me to join, and perhaps even run the program lol. I wouldn't mind that at all but not at this stage of my life. Perhaps in retirement.... Although now that I think of it, we have a new volunteer at the library who is on the garden club. Perhaps I'll talk her up this week...

annpat I'm so glad you're over the bread thing. I thought I sensed YOU felt bad. Now I can compost that stale roll on my counter today with a clear conscience.

I live down the street from a very popular pumpkin farm. One year I thought I would hit paydirt and contact them after Halloween, when they close for the season. But they told me they give all their lefover pumpkins to another local farmer for their cows. Sure enough since then I have noticed piles of pumpkins on that farm. Oh well. Guess the cows gotta eat.

:)

Dee

Kids these days are so lazy. It wasn't that long ago that kids would steal jack-'o-lanterns off porches and smash them in the road, making for much easier pumpkin gathering. You never see that nowadays.

Dee, no worries. All is forgiven. I was mainly embarrassed how the others might think less of you.

old dirt, I had pumpkins I wasn't showing. I'm forced to post another picture now.

Well phooey, I didn't score any pumpkins this year (yet). When i do, most of them get chopped up and set out for the deer plus a few for the compost. No lack of material for the compost with all the leaves I can handle plus the garden trimmings and been fishing a lot more this fall. Oh yeah for some reason I've been catching several moles lately and they make a good addition, now if I can catch that pesky racoon it will get buried in the middle also.

I do fish, but fur unglues me. I composted my grandmother's mink coat and it was grim.

LOLOL!! I truly, honestly don't know whether you are serious about composting a mink coat hahaha!

I wish I could catch a few moles. I've had a population explosion lately. Although God only know what I would do with them if actually caught. I just captured a moth and a spider that came inside the house with some hydrangeas I cut this morning (MUST look more carefully!) and put them outside. What the heck would I do with a mole? I'd probably give it a stern talking to and let it go again.

:)

Dee

Dee, I composted a 3/4 length mink coat of my grandmother's, and a mink stole of my mother's. And the grossest of all--a mink hat with little feet on it. It didn't occur to me until later that they were all probably tanned with something harsh.

The hide lasted forever and got...swollen.

And there are several buried in this bin.

And the deer got one, so far:

Now that is more like the pumpkin haul i expected. Old dirt I grew up trapping nusance animals and fur bearers and now have a creek at back of my property that's home to wildlife which has to be trapped occasionally. I've all but abandoned leg hold traps in favor of Havaheart and Conibear,depending on conditions. Coons are easier than most animals to coax into live traps and you don't have to worry about harming cats. Coon size Conibear can be a challenge to "lock and load" for unless you have hands like a gorilla but there's some good utubes offering tips. I'll throw this out for any that never dealt with a trapped coon,they can be a dangerous handfull to release from both leg hold and Havaheart so if you aren't confident in your ability or don't want to shoot them I suggest either use Conibear or learn to live with Mr Ringtail.

Dee - The moles are not catch and release, they do go in the compost pile.

Ann - That's a nice haul of pumpkins, I'm jealous! As for the mink coat and accessories, I can imagine it would take forever for the hide (leather) to compost. Even with fresh animal hides there will be remains of hair and hide after 3 years.

klem1 - I ran a trap line many years ago so am familiar with the traps. I don't use leg hold anymore only because of neighboring dogs (although I'm tempted). Same for conibear, although I've used them here for groundhogs when I was still able to set one. :(

2025 leaf mould

The mesh on this bin is about 6" x 6". It contains the leaves nicely, though. I have to stand on a stump to heft the leaves into it.

Is that deemed annpat stumpin’ for leaf mould?

tj

Ann doesn't that enclosure leak?

Like a seive, but only if I put water in it.

I have two big gauge mesh leaf bins---one is actually an upended large dog crate. The leaves don't come out of them, for some reason.

Seriously, though, here in the horrible state of Maine, I don't add water to my compost piles---other than what is already in my contributions.

Annpat - I used similar enclosures as yours but with 2" x 4" mesh, my problem was I take from them over the winter to layer whatever greens I add to the compost piles. Now I use a 5' x 10' x 5' three sided for all the fall leaves.

This is maybe 1/4 of the leaves i get from my yard. If it doesn't get filled, I will cruise the roads for bagged up leaves.

This is one area of my messy compost work. The middle bin is ready for spring, the left for the following year and the right where i am actively adding ingredients. So every three years i have a pile of finished compost, plus lots of leaf mold.

Oh, that looks great---that middle bin!

I was looking at the leaf bags in my driveway today---my chores are overwhelming me---and I thought about just leaving most of them in the bags until spring. Maybe I'll put mine in a large corall, too. I have fencing. I'll be making at least two more leaf dump hauls before snow. I'm making a haul tomorrow while my dog's getting a bath in town.

A lot of my leaves are chipped and mixed with grass clippings, so I like to get them in bins that I can hopefully flip before winter. Flipping compost bins is the least of my problems right now, though, with all my plant pots and planters still full of soil, several frozen perennials I purchased in Oct. unplanted, and the temps hitting the mid-20s last night. I also have a mountain of manure in the middle of my driveway I need to move if it doesn't freeze before I can.

The added bonus of bringing home leaf bags is I am able to use the paper Lowes' bags for my household trash for a considerable part of the year. I never use plastic trash bags anymore.

I have wonderful neighbors,not a bad apple in the bunch but not as resourceful as I like to see. I shudder to think what might happen if they found a load of manure on their drive one morning.

Today I delivered my usual sacks to house in the village that always fills them for me, and the woman said "Oh, just today we were saying, you haven't brought sacks this year. Maybe you didn't want the leaves and we'll have to burn them like we used to." I said whoah there! Nope, here are some sacks, and I'll bring more soon.

I give them big sturdy sacks about 5 feet tall, and they stuff them TIGHT. The sacks are too heavy for me to lift alone, but I usually have a friend around who will carry them around back to the bins for me.

Oooh! Score!!

Here's why I like hardware cloth bins. I can circle them, lift the bin off the compost, set the bin aside and refill it, flipping the contents. Can you see the lowest part of the bin has been lifted off? I flipped that bin this afternoon back into itself in a new spot.

I'm going to surround my bees with leaves and hope they survive the winter.

Acorns are still falling and nature isn't quite ready to give up her colorful Fall outfit down my way. First flip won't happen until holiday lights are packed up and tree sunk in our favorite crappie hole. Ya'll beat us out the chute but we'll be adding Speckled Bass trimmings and doing a second flip before snow melts off your piles. (;

If temps stay as mild here as they have been the last few days (54 F), I can probably get a few more flips in, klem. Nature is mostly naked here now; my largest oak just having cast all her remaining leaves onto the eaves on my roof, the most potentially deadly of the chores I have left, which is why I like to leave it for last.

I'm amused how many posts this thread has generated---and that 3/4 of them are mine. I sure do enjoy my annual, autumnal, compost-feedstock gathering threads.

I am donning my CarHarts and off to the leaf dump in the pouring rain, because the season is so brief I can't miss a day. I hope there's pumpkins.

klem1 - Crappie hole and fish trimmings, now you've got my attention! Do you sink your tree in the open water or put them on the ice with a brick tied to it and let it sink in the spring? May I ask what zone or part of the country you are in?

annpat - You have bees too? Wow, I think I'm in love! We always had bees and our own honey growing up but the township I live in won't allow them.

I don't do much flipping anymore. Time was when I turned my compost piles several times a year and added lots of steer and hog manure. Now days I just cold compost and takes about 3-4 years before it's ready. The only drawback is the weed seeds. I might flip the leaves for pure leaf mold if i ever get the ambition...You all inspire me.

You're a bee person! Well, well, welll. I started keeping about five colonies inititially, but I now only keep two. I do top bar beekeeping because I was able to build the hives with a chop saw, and not have to buy them. I gave it up one year and I'll never do that again. There's nothing like the smell of honey and warm beeswax in the yard.

No pumpkins today---well, one---and the dump was dreary.

I need to have compost for mulch in the spring, so I use my compost---ready or not---starting in June. Anything too rough, I toss back on a pile. I can make compost pretty quickly, though, with the chipped grass and leaf bags that I find at the dump, and the pumpkins are great to get things cooking.

I have three piles that are probably not going to get flipped this fall and three that will. If I could get ahead of the game, I'd be happy just making leaf mold---the prettiest mulch there is, to my eye.

klem's from Texas. He probably says 'all y'all'.

Crappie magnet out there on the ice in plain sight with brick attached waiting for Spring thaw,you must be kidding. If I did that "all y'all would see it and know where my honey holes is. Ann is right about my location so our lakes never freeze over.

I hear what you are saying about slowing down on turning pile and letting time handle it. My first love is mechanics and to that end I recently bought a 20 horsepower tractor said to be beyond repair due to parts needed aren't available. If homemade parts work watch out,the old man will be back with a vengeance.

Look at us all slowing down together.

I don't flip my piles because I think it's necessary, by the way; I flip compost because I like to. I love seeing the steam release and the ash in the center of the pile.

My elbows can't handle what they used to be able to handle, so I have to spare them a little, and I have other things I may need them for in the future.

I'm ahead of the game enough, though---something I always wanted to achieve---that I don't need to rush my compost along like I did in the past. I brought home 15 or 16 leaf/grass clipping bags yesterday (Ten years ago, I would have made at least 3 runs on a Saturday.) and I don't really care if I use them for compost building. I'll probably put them against my foundation for now, move them next spring and have leaf mold in '25.

Plus, I have all those leaf bags around the bees. I'm in half decent shape for the future.

I've got a bin of leaf mold I didn't use this year, although I still hope to, and I have 2 bins, rapidly shrinking, of finished compost I neglected to use. Technically, the bottom of my tall leaf cone is probably ready, too.

While searching Tractor Supply Copany's online catalog for fencing I saw what sounds like a good material for constructing enclosures and leaf corrals. It's 7 feet tall but lite shears or heavy scissors should cut it to size. //www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/hanes-geo-components-7-ft-x-100-ft-multipurpose-netting

Judging by questions I've seen posted here in the pasted, some might wonder how this "pile it and forget it" approach works. I admit when starting out I thought material might spoil if it wasn't turned on schedule. To see what to expect, dig 6-12 inches in an overgrown fence line or forest floor to see the principle at work.

Plastic netting is too soft for my purposes, pardner; the thing that's nice about the stiff hardware cloth is that it's free standing---no staking needed. I tried using chicken wire, but it's too flimsy, too. It would work as a coral, though.

One neat thing I bought once was a 16' length of what I think they call catttle fencing. It's really rugged, but the cutters the farm store gave me cut through it like butter. I bent the panels around a tree to make a curved trellis, which I use to grow my tomatoes and cucumbers on. A neighbor saw my curved panels and she did the same thing, but laid the panels on the ground like tunnels, which I guess solved her dadgum deer problem, klem. She was fixin' to have a cow if she couldn't stop the varmints from their nightly marauding.

HighColdDesert, then what do you do with the leaves? After you get them around back? Leaf mould or compost?

Hi Ann, well I don't usually talk about this here on gw, but my toilet is a composting toilet. It's a two-year alternating chamber system. So I'll dump a lot of leaves in the bottom of the chamber that I empty this December (2023), and they'll come out in Dec 2025.

I use sawdust as the cover material in the toilet. In the past I used to crumble the leaves and mix them with sawdust, water the mix, watch it warm up, then use that as cover material. But crumbling the leaves created such incredible dust that it made my respiratory system gacky for days, so I'm inclined to quit doing that this year. I've been getting coffee grounds from several cafes in town and that's amaziing when mixed with the sawdust.

So now I'm thinking about how to make leaf mold in this desiccating climate: I certainly can't keep leaves damp in a mesh ring like you do. The sacks I bring the leaves in are woven plastic, not UV resistant, and after a few months in this bright sun, they start to shred. So I need to figure out something, maybe reuse some old torn UV resistant greenhouse plastic to line something.

My garden is only 2 to 5 years on from absolutely barren desert, so it'll gobble up as much compost as I can make. I'll also use some of the leaves on arrival to mulch several garden beds, but only where I have enough sticks to cover them with a tangle, because otherwise the leaves will just dry up and blow away. The first year or two, I dug leaves in, but that's really hard work and annoying.

Yes, it is.

A friend of mine had a composting toilet and kept a potpourri of pine cones. leaves, orange peel, flower petals, etc. in a bowl near the toilet.

I presume you can't store leaves in your chamber. How tall is the chamber? My friends' home-made one had about a 12' drop. I think I'd think of it as an indoor compost bin that I used as a toilet instead of a toilet that I composted in.

I bet she could have used hers as a worm bin/composting toilet in our climate.

Some livestock feeds come in plain paper bags that are welcome addition after decomposed. Adding coffee grinds and free urea to bagged leaves is an option.

Keyhole gardening works same as hugelkultur and interesting twist that works in tight quarters. Both are made to order where water is scarce.

I worked for an organic farming association, and our offices were in a very rustic house on some wooded acreage with some farming done on it by the land/house owner. There was a composting toilet, the first (and actually, the only) one I've ever seen. The environmental geek in me loved the concept. Amazingly (well, to me at least) it worked quite well, once you got over the oddness of basically... going... in a bucket and not flushing. It's incredible though how people recoil when they hear about it. Too bad, as it could really be an environmental asset on several levels. Honestly the only thing I didn't like about it was the wooden toilet seat, but then I don't like wooden toilet seats on conventional toilets either, so it had nothing to do with the fact that it was a composting toilet.

:)

Dee

My friends' composting toilet had a normal seat, but the toilet, for some reason, was on a throne. You had to climb two steps to use it. I forget to ask why I guess. Every time she had a party that I was invited to, I took her other guests into her bathroom to look at her toilet.

Yes, I keep bees, old dirt...

I once stacked a bunch of leaf bags on my front lawn, shoulder to shoulder and left them there forever. My brother saw them and asked if I needed help raking. They broke down and are now completely gone, but they made a really nice medium for a while. None of this works in a dry climate, I bet.

Off to check out keyhole gardening...

Recoiling at the mention of composting toilets while not giving second thought to flush toilets is classic example of out of sight, out of mind. Millions of gallons of raw sewage is by-passed around treatment plants and discharged into reservoirs that are primary source of public water. The fact it isn't common knowledge doesn't make it less true and a bit of reading municipal water records show it is done with blessings of state regulators.

Nice " already mixed and chopped".

At one time I had a chipper / shredder and shredded most of my leaves but like its owner it grew old and needed a lot of TLC. I do mow, shred and bag a limited amount to add to my raised beds. I've tried the string trimmer in a barrel but too much work so I just have to wait an additional year for the leaves to decompose.

I also subscribe to the "low-effort gardening". I will on occasion get out my Ruth Stout No-Work Garden Book and wonder why I still make it all too much work.

Isn't that nice looking stuff!! It sure looks mild there. I've just spent four days without power, water, lights, heat, or wi-fi. I was 42 in my bedroom last night. (-4.44 C outside). What are your daytime temps, Flora?

I had a 30 foot Christmas tree land right on my steps in the wind event, so I ran out and bought lights, forgetting I had no power. I have power now and the tree that came down and tickled the screen on my window goes back up tomorrow.

It's pretty mild at the moment. 55ish today.

Osteospermums in my window boxes. We usually get our coldest weather in Jan/Feb by which time there are plenty of snowdrops and crocuses to keep us going. 'Coldest' means occasional overnight frosts. Maybe a couple of days with a sprinkle of snow.

Just to rub it in, I'm off to Rome tomorrow. 60° and sunny .... not to mention the food and wine.

Hope you've got your services up and running and have a warm well-lit Christmas.

Wow. I'm shocked. Much milder than I imagined.

Sorry about the duplicate pic. I can't seem to erase it. This is the one I intended to post. Winter flowering cherry

Oh, I'm very jealous of your trip---and not just for the fare! I've only been to Italy once. Six family members all traveled in groups of two for 3 weeks---my brother and his wife visited the coast, my mother and I drove all around from Florence to Venice to Lake Como, my backpacking niece and nephew toured Greece---then we all met up in Lugano for Easter. My mother and I bought and filled Easter baskets, as we traveled, with Italian Easter candy and small bottles of wine for the women and grappo for the boys, and olive oil and neat stuff (we thought) we'd found, and placed them outside the family's hotel doors on Easter morning. Easter in Italy was magical and I hope to return someday.

My mother had more religious education than I had so she was no where near as shocked as I was to turn a Tuscan street corner one Friday and encounter a bloodied Jesus Christ carrying a cross while pedestrians on the street taunted him (We didn't.) and threw fake rocks at him. We encountered a few re-enactments like that.

I can't imagine anything prettier than spending a religious holiday in a religious country. Have a wonderful trip!

- 10 C in Maine this morning or 14 F if you're local.

Not much obvious religion going on here. Just a lot of coloured lights and tinsel and a great deal of food. I'm just in from a fish restaurant and the eating and drinking will continue unabated for the next week.

Since acquiring an Italian son in law we're here a couple of times a year and we also go to a music festival every July.

Forecast for tomorrow is sun all day and 64f.😎

Sounds perfect.