Leaves made the great Green Mountains green all summer and now provide the beauty of autumn across the Vermont landscape.  Next they are dropped from their trees to add fertility and build soil.  The key message here is to use those rich leaves.  Do not remove or discard them as is so often the misguided custom.  The second message this week is about the great importance of water to plants heading into winter.  Let’s look at why we should not rake away our leaves and how to prepare your perennial shrubs for winter with big drinks of water.

Since the first green buds of spring, tree roots have been pulling up essential minerals from deep in the earth to feed their growth and productivity.  Those nutrient minerals (calcium, iron, zinc, manganese, etc.) have accumulated in their leaves to run photosynthesis, the process that uses sunshine, water, and carbon dioxide to make the sugars all plants use as their own food.  Now as the days shorten, trees prepare for winter by reabsorbing their green pigments (chlorophylls) to save for next year.  This leaves the other visible pigments that we now see as reds and yellows.  Eventually even those will be reabsorbed into the tree leaving a brown leaf rich in inorganic minerals and organic matter (carbon) designed to feed the soil.  It is pretty amazing, plants produce their own food by photosynthesis and then feed the soil around them for all the beneficial fungi and bacteria that they partner with.  It’s a great design by Nature… unless we break the cycle with a rake and a bag!

Great news, you do not need to rake those leaves!  It’s actually better for your garden plants, shrubs, lawns, and trees if you do not remove the leaves.  Leaves are ingeniously built with nutrients and beneficial microbes to replenish and fertilize the soil, so why would anybody want to get rid of something so valuable?   The answer to what to do with them is simple… shred them in place with your mower.  It might take a couple extra passes to chop them small enough but that is the best way to enrich your soil, and it’s FREE.  If you have some extra-large maple trees, as I do, that produce too many leaves on the lawn and those can become an excellent raw material for your compost or mulch around shrubs. 

Not doing compost?  Mower shred all those leaves in place right on your lawn.  Chopped up fine they will enrich your soil (no fertilizers needed!), add organic matter to hold moisture in dry spells, and suppress weeds.  It’s a win-win-win.  Either way, forget about those leaf bags, please.

Start Composting. Given the availability of all those leaves this is a terrific time to build up your compost for next year.  Mower-shredded leaves are a great source of Carbon rich organic matter for compost.  Adding kitchen scraps, surplus lawn clippings, and manure as a Nitrogen source, you have the essential ingredients for the best fertilizer, all made from free stuff you already have.  The basic formula for a successful compost is simple:  combine Carbon “browns” with Nitrogen “greens” in a ratio of about 3 to 1, but that is flexible, and you can adjust it to what you have available.  There a few basic principles to keep in mind:  1) Cut, chop, or shred your ingredients; the smaller they are the faster they break down, 2) Moisture is essential but not too much.  Compost should be moist like a wrung-out sponge, not soggy or dry, 3) The good microbes that will break down your compost need to breathe; give them air with occasional mixing to introduce oxygen into the mix. Your garden fork or pitchfork is the perfect tool for this.

What else besides leaves & food wastes can go into your compost?  Almost everything from your kitchen can be composted including peelings, spoiled fruits & veggies, eggshells (smash them), pasta, rice, moldy bread, used paper towels & napkins, newspaper (tear it up), and best of all, tea bags and coffee grounds (including the paper filter).  These are all “greens”.  From the lawn & garden use your shredded leaves, healthy pruned or removed plants, extra grass clippings, and even wood chips, sawdust, or old hay.  These are all “browns”.  I try to keep a pile of shredded leaves next to my compost bins to have ready to add whenever I add kitchen wastes to keep the 3 to 1 ratio.   Bottom line, nothing goes to “waste”, everything gets recycled.

There are a few things to avoid:  meats, fish, and cheeses.  These items will degrade in compost but may generate offensive odors or attract unwelcome bears, raccoons, dogs, rats, etc.  Fruit flies may appear and they help by bringing in more good bacteria. Diseased plants or branches should not get mixed into your compost, bury or burn them so the pathogens don’t get a chance to re-infect things next year.  Other items to avoid include pet feces and grass clippings from herbicide treated lawns.  Pet feces can carry living parasites and disease-causing bacteria while lawn herbicides will suppress or kill your garden plants as they can last for years.

How long does composting take?  That depends on what you add, how small it’s chopped, how often you mix to aerate, and the season.  In general, most compost bins will produce a ready-to-use product in 6-12 months.  If you want faster, then chop smaller and mix weekly.  Otherwise it’s a slow process but yields the best garden amendment possible and recycles your own otherwise wasted materials into black gold.

What happens to compost in the winter?  Simple, it freezes and all action stops.  That’s OK, you can keep adding your kitchen wastes and they will be ready to go come spring.  If your bin gets filled over winter, you can spread your kitchen wastes on the snow directly over your garden.  It will degrade and feed the soil as the snow melts.  Get a second bin next year, you are doing well!

Here’s a new short video to help you get your own compost started.

Water please.  Following months of summer our perennials are in need of their fall drinking.  Fall is always the time to soak woody perennials (the ones that don’t die back to the ground but have woody stems exposed all winter) in preparation for a long, dry, cold winter.  Every week that we don’t get an inch of rainfall give those perennials a deep soaking with a couple gallons of water.  This is especially important for younger, smaller plants of fruit trees or bushes, hydrangeas, lilacs, rhododendrons, forsythia, and roses.  Better not to feed them, just water.

Got bulbs?  After this warm spell has passed it’s time to plant your flowering bulbs and garlic.  Planted too early they might try to grow sprouts above ground which will get frozen and waste valuable energy in the bulb.  Any time from now through late-November will be fine for bulbs.  That will provide them enough time to begin some root growth but not time to sprout above ground.  I’ll cover garlic planting details in the next article.

How is your soil?  October is an excellent time to get your soil tested.  Following instructions at the UVM Soil Testing Lab website, send in a sample for analysis.  If they recommend adjusting the soil pH (acidity) or nutrient levels you can apply the remedy now so it will be well incorporated into your soil by spring planting time.

What did you learn in your garden this year?  What are you going to do differently next year?  Please share your knowledge and ideas.  Got questions?  Suggestions?   Leave a message in the Comments below.