I'm envious. While cleaning out my backyard when I first moved here I found black plastic bags that someone had used to gather weeds/leaves and forgotten about. I opened them up and discovered real treasure. Every year I wished I had enough leaves to compost this way buy I need them all to cover my shade garden. DK
If you scrounge 19 overstuffed bags of leaves two years ago and pile them up
> in an out of way space, will they compost over that period of time into
> black humus? The answer is yes.............I finally pulled the bags of
> leaves I'd scrounged in Sevierville along side of the road on my way home
> when I worked up in Gatlinburg, and then tossed under the kitchen deck until
> I had time to dump them into my compost pile.
>
> I actually had scrounged about 29 huge bags of leaves, but had actually used
> ten of them over the last year or two when I thought of it, but the lion's
> share of them sat quietly under the deck decomposing. I noticed yesterday
> as I was cleaning off the downstairs patio slab that is in front of the
> laundry room/den that one bag was almost decomposed completely and what was
> inside was black and there were huge earthworms. That's all it took. >
> Today I planted the four althea's along the northern edge of the first ridge
> behind our house and was wondering what I'd fill the holes up with. The soil
> was worse than concrete with the dry spell we've had recently. All the rains
> we've gotten have done their best and worst but now with NO rain, there are
> huge cracks in the soil now. I couldn't get the shovel into the soil to
> even make a hole. It took the maddock.
>
> One althea had too much soil and provided it's own top fill, but the other
> three were looking like they were going to be living out the fall and winter
> in their nursery pot when I decided I'd plug them under the walnut tree in
> the walnut box with the hardy begonia, Ladies of the valley, Sum and
> Substance hosta, and bronze ajuga. But there wasn't adequate soil at the
> northern end of the box. Ahhhhh, never mind, I will at least be able to dig
> a hole for the bushes, and topdress them with a bag or two of the leaf
> compost under the deck. I took them all. It was wonderful. Every bag was two
> thirds less than what it had been. But each one had rich, damp, black > compost. >
> The box now has two altheas. One pure white one called Diana. The other is
> Aphrodite, a deep pink with deep burgandy pink throat. The other ones are a
> double red and a double pink-purple one that I planted on either side of the
> other two doubles. When they grow together, their combination of double
> puffs of color will be intriguing. And the pure white Diana is the cleanest
> white one I've ever seen, standing next to the deep pink Aphrodite will be
> kinda neat too.
>
> Down in the tomato box I planted "Magic Carpet" spirea to join the Goldflame
> one I'd plugged in the corner three weeks earlier. I am slowly making my
> way away from the constipated front and side beds. There's hope for me yet.
> And oh joy, oh joy, I got my baby Deutzia from Brudder John today in the
> mail and it's tucked against the northern side of the tomato box near a
> rich, composty area where the soil slowly leeches out, and a cedar stump has
> finally given it's life and is providing it's own compost. As I dug out the
> spot for the bush, I had to return fat earthworms back in the hole with the
> little bush. I can't wait until it tastes the rich soil and takes off into
> growth......Life is good!
>
> madgardener up on the ridge, back in fairy holler where the hummers are
> straffing each other like little Red Baron's right now just outside my nook
> window, where I can see English Mountain in the waining sunset, the sides of
> the mountains slopes lit up and the textures evident, here in Easterh
> Tennessee where it's going down to the low 50's tonight......great sleeping > weather!
>
>