They are a gift but alas, not when stuffed in a black plastic bag with a red plastic bow. I am very sad when I see these gifts of nature being taken away as garbage for the landfill. If they are so abhorrent to a person, at the very least they can be raked up and just placed in a pile in the corner of the garden. By spring, their bulk will have reduced considerably and they can be placed back around the trees and shrubs from whence they came, to give back the nutrients for another year.

Leaves are gold. It has only been in recent times of suburbia, synthetic chemicals and an emphasis on a golf course like lawn, that composting seemed to disappear. I wonder on any street, how many homes actually have a compost area today.   Since humans have cultivated the land they have fed the land with manures and composts; until the last one hundred years that is.

In this post I am not going to suggest everyone go out and build the best composting system but I am going to say that, what these plants gave you, should go back to the plants, when possible. It is easy to do in many ways. As, like many readers, we like to keep the areas of grass visible during fall and spring so we rake our leaves. Many of them will go into the compost box that is active. When the box is full with all the vegetable matter that came off the vegetable beds as well as leaves, the rest of the leaves will be used as blankets. If the leaves are going directly into a compost pile it helps to start the decomposition process, to mow over them a few times. Their bulk will also be considerably reduced.

Most of my leaves will be thrown all over my perennial borders, flower and vegetable beds as an airy mulch for winter. It is best if the leaves can be as dry as possible, depending on the weather. When the snow comes they will be flattened but they still decompose under the snow.  In the spring, when the snow has gone and the ground starts to thaw, I take a rake and fluff them up again to let everything start to dry out and overwintering insects to hatch. Oxygen is also required to assist with the leaves decomposition. The leaf mulch has not only protected the crowns of plants but also helped the soil to retain moisture through the dry days of fall and in the spring. When snow melts the water quickly drains away along the path of least resistance.  Organic matter holds the moisture within the soil. Once the snow has gone and the soil is workable the beds will need a tidy and old vegetation removed, to go back into the compost. Some of the leaves will be left to be incorporated by the worms into the soil. Over winter the compost box will have settled considerably and there will be room. Not only does a good leaf mulch help the soil retain moisture, it provides nutrients, protects the plant crowns and to some degree discourages weed growth.

Any excess leaves, and for those that do not have a composting system, the leaves can simply be placed in a pile somewhere. It is tidier if you take a length of chicken wire or fencing and wrap it into a circle. In spring the wire can be removed or lifted off and the leaves at the bottom that have composted well, can be removed and tilled into the garden. The worms will do the rest of the work. Any flat, soggy layers of leaves that have not started to break down can start the new pile, possibly in a new location. If you don’t get round to removing the bottom layer by fall your pile of leaves will have shrunk considerably so you can add to the top. When you do get round to see what has happened to the leaves at the bottom, you will find the best black, crumbly, nutritious soil known as leaf mold, which can then be used anywhere in your garden, as a top dressing for grass or in your vegetable or flower beds. …and it was free.

We have two compost boxes in our garden although I admit three are ideal. In the spring the compost that has been decomposing for a year, gets spread on the garden and the previous year’s active pile gets turned over.  Some like to do this job in the fall but we find it much easier in spring when the flower beds are clear of top growth and the compost is more easily distributed.

Enjoy those leaves, not only for their beauty but for the other gifts they provide.