October 6th, 2008 · No Comments

For much heavier mulching mixes, direct those leaves to the compost that’s either in your own backyard or by sending them to a compost facility in your town, providing that your area provides public composting access or leaf recycling services. To find out what your county has available for leaf-recycling, contact the Cooperative and Extension System office in your area.

GET DOWN AND “DIRTY” WITH THE USDA

The United States Department of Agriculture has created a wonderful website where you can find out exactly who to contact in your location, to answer all of your agriculture and horticulture questions, from recycling leaves to composting concerns. These Cooperative and Extension System offices provide volunteer gardening buffs and Master Gardeners to answer questions, offer lectures, and maintain links to the public in many ways. Consider them to be your horticultural hot line.

For creating a home-compost, try these sources:

• The Missouri Department of Natural Resources guide to composting, which is detailed but not too lengthy.
• The Rodale Book of Composting: Easy Methods for Every Gardener.

The latter book comes highly recommended by Master Gardener John Borbas, with the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks in Fayetteville, AK. Borbas explains that in his hometown of Fayetteville, one of the fall foliage capitals of the world with some 600 different types of trees in the nearby forests.

“Composting the leaves here, it’s a great way to utilize the enormous amounts of nutrients that are available; don’t throw them away, compost them.”he says.

Borbas explained one method for creating your own backyard compost:

“By setting leaves in 12 inch-high piles, then putting alfalfa pellets on them, using about 2 coffee cans full of pellets on the pile, then watering; it’s very good and easy,” he said. “You keep layering every 12 inches in this way, until reaching about 4 feet-high. The temperature will reach 120-140 degrees in there within three days or so, and that’s how the mixture gets broken down.”

He explains that this process occurs no matter how cold it is outside, “Even if it’s 18 degrees outside,” he says, “the mixture will still heat up in there.”

Borbas also suggests not going higher than 4 feet, because going any higher than that level can cause problems where oxygen and sunlight, essentials to composting, are not being allowed inside the pile.

“A compost bin that’s 4 ft high and 6 ft wide is a great size for a backyard; shape’s not important but height is – too high is not good – too high can smother the compost,” Borbas says.

He also suggests placing straw or wood chips in between each 12-inch layer, to serve as a cover to keep flies and rodents out. “If you don’t have straw, then use wood chips. Electric companies are always cutting down tree limbs that get in the way of electrical wires; sometimes they will donate their wood chips to you if you call them. That’s where I get mine from, and they are happy to give them to me.”

So call your electricity provider and nab another natural resource that would otherwise go to waste.

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