So, the question was asked of me this week, what am I doing with all my leaves?

The leaves are starting to fall and will continue to do so for the next six to eight weeks and I love them. They provide natural organics and insulation for my flowerbeds for the upcoming winter. Every year I lecture to people that rake up their leaves simply to throw them away. They might as well put a twenty-dollar bill in every bag of leaves they throw away because they are just throwing money away. Mother nature makes sure that every plant that grows produces something useful. For most trees that is leaves.

Sure, oaks give us acorns, maples give us syrup and fruit trees provide a bounty of delicious fruits, but they all also give us leaves. These leaves provide vital nutrients that go back into the soil when they decay. They also provide food for many microorganisms, fungi and worms. I simply mulch up my leaves every time I mow so that they don't build up on my yard. This week I will pull down my deer netting that protects my flowerbeds around the house, and I will mow the lawn in the direction of the house. By doing so, I will be mulching the leaves and throwing them onto my flowerbed at the same time. As they build up, they provide insulation for the soil when we get those wild temperature swings during the winter if we don't have a good snowpack.

Each time I go over the leaves with my mower they break down into smaller and smaller particles that decay even faster. Every year I see bags upon bags of leaves that people just bag up and have carted away. This is ludicrous. Why pay someone else to take away nutrients from your lawn and then buy fertilizer to keep your lawn green? I probably shouldn't tell you that since I am the one selling you the fertilizer too. Even though I'm retired, I still help out at the store during the spring when you'll be coming in for fertilizer.

At the very least start your own compost pile instead of having them carted away to someone else's compost pile or worse yet a landfill. As the days get shorter more leaves will begin to fall and all you need to do is to mow your lawn a little more often to mulch these leaves up so that they can decompose on your lawn and fertilizer at the same time. In the spring I mow almost once a week to keep up with the grass and in the fall, I mow just as often to keep the leaves from piling up. You need to cut the leaves a little at a time so that the ones you cut last week get cut again this week with the new ones into finer bits.

By the end of the season, you should have a fine coat of leaves to decay on your lawn over the course of the winter. This might take a little more mowing, but a lot less raking, bagging and disposing of what is simply mother nature’s way of invigorating the ground. No one fertilizes the forests around Sullivan County, yet they grow lush every year, that is because no one throws the leaves away. I have written about mycorrhizal fungi before and how important it is for your plant roots. Well, roughly ninety percent of the mycorrhiza die off each winter due to the harsh cold, but with a thick blanket of leaves and pine needles on the ground the natural mycorrhiza in the forests survive at a much higher rate.

So, as you see those leaves falling in the days and weeks to come, don't look at it as more work raking and bagging but instead look at it as free fertilizer falling from the sky.