Every year massive oak trees blanket my backyard in a crisp,
brown mat of leaves. Usually, I squirrel away as many as I can in my compost
area. The remainder I squish into brown paper leaf bags for curbside
collection. Lots and lots of leaf bags.
Last year I finally got sick of sending all of that
beautiful compost fodder off to someone else and decided to try and compost it
myself. I ended up building three leaf bins in addition to my black plastic beauty to hold all of the leaves. They were still overflowing so I sent
a few bags to the curb. Progress comes in strides...
November 2016: It's raining leaves. Hallelujah, it's raining leaves. Hey, hey... |
February 2017 The leaves dropped about two feet over winter. After cleaning up all of the surrounding leaves... |
February 2017 ...the bin is nearly full again. |
May 2017 The pile shrank to half its original size. Keep on keeping on, leaf compost. |
June 2017 I added the contents of another leaf bin to make room. I also added a super secret ingredient to speed up composting. |
September 2017 The compost is nearly finished. Like a custard filled doughnut, my compost is hiding a "delicious" secret surprise. |
November 2017 Harvest Time! |
Up close and personal with the leaf mold compost. A perfect mulch. |
Any leaves not finished composting went into the new leaf bin (mostly those on the outside). All of my leaf bins are full again and I am happy to report no leaves went to the curb this year!
Do you compost your leaves? If you have any tips or tricks, leave them below.