This afternoon I filled a fifty gal. plastic pickle barrel with packed dry leaves and stuck a weed whacker into them.
Took about thirty seconds to chop them.
I expected them to fly out the barrel, but it didn't happen. The barrel has a narrower throat than body, so I tried it using a fifty gal plastic trash can, which is wider at the top. Same good results.
Freakin' easy.
Charlie
Charlie wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I remember finding a haul of about 15 trash bags with shredded leaves set out on trash day in my brother's neighborhood. I just loaded them all into my truck and put them directly on my garden when I got home. My garden, next year, was the best garden I ever had. The plants were enormous, healthy and bloomin' their little heads off.
God bless whomever shredded up all those leaves and then threw them out. And thank God they used clear trash bags! :)
That's a good idea.. One I'll use when I get ready and make leaf mold.. Currently no leaves to do anything with here though, so my impatient self will need to wait.. :)
Huh. I'll have to try that.
I noted last week when I "mowed" my front driveway with a "Grass Hog" weed whacker, it did pulverize stuff nicely if I went after it just right.
In article , FragileWarrior > barrel has a narrower throat than body, so I tried it using a fifty gal
Been there, done that! I love leaf mulch. Best darned weed controller I've ever used. The used pine shavings out of Freya's aviary work well too.
This question is for both of you, or whoever else. Are their any leaves that one should stay away from? Walnut doesn't sound too great to me, but I don't know.
Charlie
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yea, been doing the leaf trick for a number of years now and just last year I invented the garden ladder for getting the tomatoes from the tops of the tomato trees. this year I modified the garden ladder and was able to get to the tops of the okra trees also. a friend said I ought to patent garden ladder but I want to prefect the steering linkage first.
Charlie wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
black walnut, butternut & hickory all have juglone in varying amounts, so you don't want to add those to the compost... in theory. OTOH, both my black walnuts have grass growing up to the trunk & the bigger one has a lovely healthy dogwood growing well inside it's dripline (it did kill an apple tree though). i also wouldn't compost poison ivy, poison sumac or poison oak. lee
Hint I got from locals on Okra... (I know what you mean about them becoming "trees"!!! ;-D )
They told me to "top" the plant (pull the terminal bud" when the plant hit 2' to 3' tall. This not only prevents it from getting 8' tall, but it also makes it branch where you cut it (and you can continue the practice as the branches get longer) so this will increase your yields.
More branches, more blooms/fruits.
I do so love Okra blooms and the fresh young fruits!
Only anything that is known to be toxic... Or if your soil tends to be too acidic, avoid pine needles.
We tend to have alkaline soil so pine needles and shavings are beneficial.
Just about all my neighbors are superfreaks when it comes to one leaf on their precious lawn. Most of them actually vacuum their lawns with leaf vacs and I gladly take them. Last year I bought an electric blower vac which has a bag and I now offer to shred and many times I empty the bags and reshred them to make them even finer. Of course this is Texas and my live oaks shed in spring, not winter.
Hi again, Jang.
I was watchin' Omelets thing regarding alkaline soil and pine needles. Noticed that the Juniper Ashe needle runoff into settling areas, after a few years, does similar around the rocky areas (surface limestone and caliche). Doesn't hold water very long though. Long term for soil making. Making some of my property a test bed regarding Juniper Ashe only, Live Oak only, mixture of both, and no trees area getting no sustenance from either tree. Talk to you in a decade or so. Dave
Hi Dave,
I'm not sure what you're saying, but if you are saying that leaving the leaves where you have a lot of caliche and rocky soil to grow new soil (so to speak) then that would be correct. Soil is made with the combined effort of rock and organic matter. It really does help and make a lot of sense to grow plants which prefer cliche (and they do exist).
We live almost at the bottom of a hill in Hill Country and I have the great fortune to have very deep soil. It's at least 3 feet deep. I know because when they dug the pool I say the horizons of soil and caliche didn't start for at least 36 inches, deeper in spots. Do let everyone now how your progress comes along.
Guess I was a bit hazy. Am supposing that the cedar (juniper ashe) leaves/needles are composting in low lying areas consisting of limestone and caliche. Mostly pockets in the limestone areas. Just an observation on my part. Other supposin's are that the chemical that naturally inhibits other plant growth in "cedar" is diminished over time by rain and so forth. Am also supposin' that "cedar" needles are of an acidic nature.
Am about 3/4s up a hill west of Wimberley. Soil is sparse at best. I can get St. Augustine it grow well in some of this if I water the heck out of it. And, is under tree cover (live oaks/juniper ashe). Stuff is too well drained due to limestone immediately beneath it. Soil in surrrounding yard around house, I had brought in. Gonna transplant my lemon tree from pot to yard next early spring. My end intent is to block the SW-W sun from shining on the front porch. Too hot. Winter heating bill in minimal here, so I don't think this will affect it that much.
Your soil depth has me green with envy. Dave
Heh! I hear you on the Live Oaks! I have them too.
I just let leaves lay. They compost down to nothing in less than a month depending on rain patterns.
I still boggle on why anyone bothers to rake leaves!!!
Granted, I DO rake leaves out of the driveway but only because the leaf compost is beneficial for my bulb/rhizome beds. That is the location it gets raked to. Best weed control I've ever practiced. My herb bed benefits too since it is also next to the driveway. (West side of the house).
If you want to save water, look into Buffalo grass or Bermuda.
My front yard is fully shaded, so I'm trying to get Monkey grass to grow there instead. I'm fencing it off from the Border Collie.
St. Augustine needs full sun as do most true grasses.
Monkey Grass is not (true) grass and likes full to partial shade.
Frankly, I don't understand why the OP is trying to discourage it. I'm trying to grow an entire lawn of it! It takes less water and never needs mowing if it is the dwarf variety.
Omelet wrote in news:omp snipped-for-privacy@news.giganews.com:
that's your climate & your leaves :)
because here in the northeast we have maple trees. maple leaves, particularly those nasty invasive Norway maples, get wet in the fall rains & turn into a thick, slimy impervious mat, which can (& does) smother perennials & smaller shrubs/trees or your compost heap. if you rake & chop the leaves, you can use them as mulch, because onces shredded they can't mat down in layers the same way. they also decompose faster & take less room in the compost pile. i'd say raking or not is a regional thing, as well as a personal esthetics thing for some people. i have never had to rake the 3 acres of 'yard' because the wind blows the leaves off the grass (& what doesn't blow off gets shredded by the lawnmower). however, *some* of the leaves blow up along the stone walls & stay there, where they get rained on & pack down. *those* leaves i rake out, shred & put back so they can protect the perennials along the walls. lee
I'm not sure a lemon will survive the usual ice storm we can get down here in Tejas. I have two in huge tubs and one of them currently has dozens of lemons on it. Big, juicy lemons!
I was floored with the depth of the soil, myself and consider myself very lucky. The other side of it is that, I don't really have a well tended garden. It's mostly wild and for habitat of displaced animals when Walmart builds every mile another store.
(...)
My entire lawn is in dense shade and is St. Augustine and it is greener than any other lawn on the block. I have not watered it one time this year. With all the rain in July, it must have drawn the roots way down in the soil. Always by now I have cinch bugs in dry areas.
Okay. I have Oak, Hackberry, Ligustrum and Ash.
Wow. I was not aware of that, thanks.
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