We have quite a few trees on our property, including big oaks. Every year we gather huge piles of leaves, like 20 cubic yards or so (wild guess), and put them on the curb to be "vacuumed" by a giant machine.
Enormous quantity of stuff, simply enormous.
It stikes me as an awful loss of organic matter and something that would surely lead to soil depletion. Is that correct?
If so, what would be a practical way to address it. I cannot have a giant compost pile. What else can I do to keep the oranic matter and yet have a good looking yard.
I use a high capacity leaf shredder. The leaves make wonderful compost. Your compost pile doesn't have to be enormous, you can really pile ina lot into a small area as long as you turn in occassionally.
The county is getting tired of collecting leaves so they are on a big campaign to have you mulch them. One of the statistics they are using is that 90% of the nutrients taken out of the soil is returned back to the soil if you mulch the leaves. I live in a heavily forested area and its not uncommon to get 8 inches of leaves on the ground. I just run my mulching lawn mower over them and they disappear. May take several passes but it sure beats raking. OF course I try not to let them get that deep before I mulch them. THere is a danger of matting down the grass under the clippings. Haven't raked leaves in over 15 years. In the spring I use a rake to clean up whats left.
Yes, here is a twist: one of the advantages of having large islands of ground cover/mulch around the trees (besides reduced mowing, and reduced turning of the mower) is that it is where fall leaves can be disposed. First I blow the leaves from the islands on the lawn part of the yard, and then as I mow them (a couple of passes are usually necessary, as well as sharp blades) all are thrown back, shredded, onto the islands where they will be completely under the ground cover by next May. I estimate that each year the leaves are removed one millimeter of top soil goes. I usually mow all my leaves, and take those of neighbors for the compost pile.
Leaves do three things for trees. They conserve moisture, they provide most of the nitrogen inflow (via bacteria), and they provide humus for better nutrient absorption. The fun (crazy) thing is that people are willing to let grass and lack of nutrients weaken their trees, and then they are willing to plop $1000 to remove a big tree near the house. And all they need is their own leaves, and some extra wood chips perhaps.
Use the leaves as a mulch around the trees. Spread as a mulch, the leaves will decompose, forming compost without a compost pile. It just takes a little longer. Oaks in particular actually need a build-up of leaves and leafmold in their root zones if they are to thrive.
They could also bag them in lawn sized trash bags and let other gardeners know they can have them for free.
Also they could reduce the amount of space by running a lawn mower threw the pile of leaves. This could cut down the amount by 60 to 80% and then they could use it for mulch too.
To bad they're not near me, I could use those leaves for my own desert garden.
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