Thanks Luke. You didn't mention the old fashioned way of breaking down the leaves for mulch. When I was young we would rake the leaves into a big pile and then jump in them, roll around in them, throw hands full of them at each other, etc. Lots of fun for us back then. When the pile was sufficiently broken down we would rake them up and take them to the garden for my dad to put on the garden. Kids now days might not like it but I still enjoy stomping a pile of leaves to make my mulch. My dogs enjoy it too. Much Love
I can't believe how much money I save on soil just simply using all the natural compost I've unknowingly created for the last few years.. All the leaves and grass clippings I've naturally hoarded have now turned into beautiful garden soil its unbelievable to me that I didn't even know I didn't have to buy garden soil when its plentiful right in my yard...
Great video. Last fall was my first with a WORX leaf shredder and I love it. Really breaks down the leaves. I create enough to mulch all my gardens in both the fall and again in spring. Usually wait til the day before a heavy rain or the first heavy snowfall as that will keep the mulch in place and limit how much gets blown around.
I’m on year 3 with mine. Absolute game changer! I collect bags of leaves from friends and neighbors, usually 100-150 bags. Dramatic soil improvement. (I also compost with seaweed and horse manure.)
This past summer I didn’t have access to as many wood chips as usual and so I used oak leaves from our woods. I cannot tell you how much of a difference it made keeping the weeds down in the veggie garden. The soil was very moist too. They really helped during the drought. This fall we mulched our leaves and collected them with our riding mower in the attached bagger. We mulched all of our fruit trees. As an aside, we had built a deck close to one of our huge pines and it became very stressed and lost many branches. Perhaps because of all the concrete piers? So last fall we mulched under that tree with a heavy cover of leaf mulch and broken down wood chips. It was amazing this summer to see how the die back had stopped and the tree looks much healthier. So we love our leaf mulch and we have an abundance of it! Thanks for another great video Luke! 👍🏻
Our home is on 25 acres. When we moved here 20 years ago there was nothing but a few big trees in the 5 acres of lawn around the house. I used wood chips to create beds and then mulched with leaves as the trees I planted in the beds grew. Now I have reduced lawn to less than 3 acres and have many beds which I mulch with leaves I gather each fall with a bagger on my riding mower. I call leaves my fall harvest and I never have enough!
I normally just mulch my leaves with the lawnmower. Partially out of laziness but hey my laziness is also good for the soil. I will be throwing some in my garden this year.
Great video! I have been mulching just dry shredded oak leaves for 4 years. It makes a great bedding for vermiculture. Just let it mold for about 6 weeks (moist) then add red composting worms. This will break it down in less than a year and convert to about 30% worm castings in that time. Easy to do. No turning. I do mine in 40 gallon black plastic planting pots. Works out very well. Shredding the leaves reduces them by about 80% as you note in your video.
I'm a huge advocate of leaf mold / leaf mulch. I have about 1.5 acres of lawn, covered with oaks and maples. I shred everything with the tractor, and push it into a big furrow with the chute. Then I chop again & bag, and throw it into the truck. I can mulch an ENORMOUS amount of leaves into a half-dozen truck loads. I'll spread them on my garden next year as mulch. Last spring's leaf mulch is gone already.... broken down and added to the soil. A nice circle...
Question for you: Have you ever had the bags of leaves turn into really smelly ick smelly? I bagged mine in the Fall, added a bucket of water, poked some holes in the bags and stored them on the side of my house for the winter. When I checked on them yesterday they have a horrible stench. Like rotted smell. I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. If I can fix this by adding some more holes and flipping the bags over and giving it more time, or if I have to throw them away. Any advice?
I have that same mower,Its a Troy Bilt .I absolutely love it .I make fertilizer for free by sucking up the grass clippings I then use the clipping in a clean garbage can for 3 -4 days with about half full of water. The green water will fertilized almost any vegetable..Also, now since the leaves have fallen you can take the chopped leaves and compost them with some grass clippings for compost for spring.
I make my blades as sharp as possible and then using the side discharge, I go around the yard from outside to the center. When I am done it has the consistency of light soil and I put it in a pot with fertilizer and the plants grow great in it.
That's sorta what I do. I have just started composting. I drove around and around to make it into fine mulch. Was sorta fun , too. Then added to my compost bin.
I live in extreme southern Virginia, and my main concerns in the growing seasons are (1) how to stay ahead of the mold that eats up my tomatoes, and (2) how to use winter mulch that might help mitigate the growing season mold (see number 1). Thank you! Your videos have been wonderfully helpful, even though we live in such different parts of the world!
It is also good to put some branches on top so wind doesn't blow everything everywhere. And i think that its great that the leaves get mixed up with some fresh grass when u make mulch this way
Here in Las Vegas it’s hard to find leaves, today I noticed at the park by my house there’s a ton of leaves! I’m gonna get some after work and use my weed wacker and mulch them up in a trash can! Thanks Luke
We have a mulching lawn mower. I run over them once, dump the lawnmower bag out, and then mow over them again. What would normally be a huge volume of leaves is chopped up soooo small that 26 big contractor garbage bags of whole leaves turns into 3-4 bags. We mow our community meridian and get soooo many free leaves. And by using this method, we get that large volume down into a manageable number of bags. I'm heading out tomorrow to get more.
Very good video. I have been making circles around my house with lawn mower. I don't have a bag catcher but I just keep going over and over, sorta fun and putting in my compost pile. Thanks for always being such an inspiration to us fellow newbie's. Lol God is Good.
Thanks Luke. Certainly good timing as we have a lot of leaves falling. I just spent the last 7 weeks building my 15 raised beds and filling them with compost. From conception to completion was a bit more than I imagined but they are done and I am well pleased with them. I amended them as your video instructed a couple of weeks ago with kelp, Worm castings, and Uric acid. I planted your garlic in one of my beds and added Trifecta as well to that bed. The garlic is sprouting now. Would it be good to add leaves as mulch to this bed? How about all the beds even though they have no plants until next year? Thanks for all you do Luke.
I get a ton of large oak leaves on my property. I wait until the yard is covered with leaves and then mow them without the bag on the mower, but with the mower on its highest setting. I then mow over them a second time with the bag on the mower and the mower set at a medium height. It breaks down the leaves even better so that I do not end up with so many bags of fluffy leaves. I then spread then on top of my bare garden spaces.
Another great video dear. I learned lots. I don’t have the equip,nets so used garden scissors and just bunched up leaves twigs and cut through them and then mulch them. Also can put layer of ash on top of them for extra layer of nutrition for winter. I hope that is ok? Thanks again appreciate your grt videos.
Thank you for this video, I didn’t know that you had to make the leaves crumbled before you added them so that explains why my compost bin is just sitting there not doing anything. (again) thank you!
I build my raised gardens out of free, and chemical free, heat treated pallets, and make them 3 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet deep. I just bought a Worx Trivac, which claims to mulch leaves to an 18:1 ratio. I then topped off each garden with one full collection bag apiece, giving them about four or five inches of shredded leaves. We were walloped with several inches of snow before I was able to surround the Macintosh, and Almond trees.
I don't have a lawn mower and my landlord took his mower off his tractor early this year. So instead I raked leaves off the dirt road at the end of the driveway ( no grass underneath pulling at the rake, so it's easier) and I raked them into the driveway and my landlord and I drive over them on our ways about our business. This worked better than mowing them! Then I also went into the nearest big town and took already raked and hefty paper-bagged leaves off the curbs after I had called the cops and asked if it was ok. It was, if the leaves are on the curb.
I just go over my St. Augustine lawn here in north Georgia and mulch the leaves into the grass. It adds frost protection, nitrogen, and there are fewer winter, spring and summer weeds.
Where we live we often get s lot of wind. It seems like the wind just blows the leaves/leaf mulch away in a day or so. 😅😅 I still try to use it though.
Hi Luke, is this a good insulation for strawberries in pots during the winter? Ive been using grass clippings and leaves for my compost pile and actually finished my 3rd one so im excited for next spring.
Our property has plenty of Live Oak Leaves that take years to break down, bet I bagged 70 bags last year. This year I increased size of my chicken run and coop and I’m going to use in their run area. They can search for protein and next year I’ll till and hopefully they will increase composting times. Wish my leaves were that thin.
I recall years back a Master Gardener (flowers) said to mulch around plants w OAK leaves BCS they didn't mush down & smother them. Don't recall what he did come spring tho!
I do have a mulching mower with a bag. I could use that to put that under my trees and bushes. Put it in places i want to grow stuff, and protect in the winter like a blanket. I usually just mow my grass and leaves and let it stay the place i mowed. I only bought a mulching mower to mow in places my riding mower could not get.
Leaf mulch works great in my garden as well. Anybody have any experience with pine straw as mulch? You can read where it supposedly increases the acidity of your garden but does it really effect it enough to matter?
I managed to get several bags of leaves done but our weather was awful. Constant rain every day and now early snow that I never was able to get a chance to break down our leaves. Our lawn mower broke down so wasn't an option. I'm almost half tempted to have the kids go outside and just jump on the bags. LOL We've had such an usual fall that I'm hoping I'm going to be able to use these leaves next spring.
Yes, that's an excellent use and reduces waste, but it may be better to use the mulch throughout spring to limit any unwanted species from planting themselves in your garden.
If you turn leaves into the soil, the leaves breaking down steals nitrogen from your soil, so you'll be short on nitrogen and will need to add more to your soil. Keeping the leaves on the surface of the soil does not do this. I do 3 things with leaves. 1. Feed them to composting worms to make compost year round. Grind them up first. I use as mulch and I make hemophilic compost also or regular compost. I add lots of coffee grounds and spent tea leaves I collect from local coffee houses, which helps the leave break down must faster, grind them up before adding to pile also. Coffee grounds and tea leaves are very high in nitrogen and other important nutrients for the soil. I can never collect enough fall leaves for the garden. Oh, one last thing I put newspaper or cardboard down in the garden walkways then leaves on; top this really keeps grass and weeds down in the garden. I have only raised beds in the garden. Maintenance takes no time at all year round. I must have used 1000 bags of leaves in my garden last year and making compost. I do serious leave runs When people bag leaves and put them by the curb.
1. A veggie without sun is not as nutritional as those grown in the sun 2. Is a lawn mower that is not electric or gas. It is completely organic this way 3. Happy gardening
Hi, great information! I was wondering if I'm able to use leaves that had been previously effected by powdery mildew, or had been eaten up by insects, or that have some white flies, aphids, or other worm insects on them; I can cut them all up together, throw them in a bin, wet them down, and leave them to decompose over winter, then come spring, use them as a leaf mold mulch- or is it better to leave those leaves out as they could cause some issues for new plants? Thank you for your wonderful tutorial video and information! 😊🍁🌱🌷🌻🍅🫑👩🌾
Luke, I don't know where you are in Michigan but I'm in St Clair Shores. I'm so bummed about this early snow. I still have many projects to finish before December. Love your channel bro. All the best.
YES! My neighbors probably think I'm crazy. When they're out there with their leaf blowers. I'm out there with my mulching bagging lawn mower. And a side note, I never seen whole leaves get moldy. I use to use straw in my dog pen. It got moldy filled with creepy bugs and spiders. Then one year I throw leaves in there. And all I found was worms. And of course the dog poop.
I love the Gator blade for my push mowers. 3 passes over my heavily oak treed yard and they almost disappear. Meanwhile my neighbors waste time and money raking, blowing, sucking and hauling.
I tried both the lawn mower and the weed whipper and the weed whipper gave me a finer mulch. Weed whipper for the win. Now I'm concerned the lawn mower leaves are too big.
And you have grass that gets mixed in, that's the vitamin. Good advice. But I don't have grass, just weeds. And I don't trust other people's grass clippings because many people use weed control products which isn't safe while growing food to eat. Any other suggestions to supply nitrogen at the same time as leaves?
I must interject a corrective thought here. "Too much moisture" is NOT a problem in 9B Arizona and Florida. In these places, we need AS MUCH MOISTURE as we can get. It averages so many days between rains in Orlando. The rumor about the rains happening every day at 5 - 6 is simply not true. When they do come in July - August, it's never enough to be a solid rain. The leaves are broken and aerated during a small till cycle, without going to deep and harming the worms. The only thing I would recommend for leaf mulching in 9B is, "use way more than you think". I've laid out tons of leaves only to have them compost down to 2" of soil.
I'm interested in seeing what you are doing for indoor gardening Luke. I got a grow tent myself this year and am doing some Kratky Hydroponics. My basil is like Jurassic period sized but it doesn't taste as good as the raised bed organic stuff. The rest is lettuce for now but it's all perfect. Salanova butter and oak leaf lettuce. Looking to do a cherry tomato and perhaps a lunchbox pepper.
Make a 3-4' diameter cylindrical compost bin from 36" hardware cloth. Add layers of weeds or blood meal (N) to chopped (yard vac best at this) leaves (C) to aid microbial degradation. Water very well. Use mulch fork to turn over.
Hi Luke absolutely love your channel but this video came a couple weeks late for me we did do the lawnmower leaf mulching and added it to my compost bin but it wasn't time to mulch the strawberries and garlic yet so I didn't use it for that I used whole dried leaves for those 2 beds when they were ready and we got an ice storm last night so I'm glad they were on the beds but the question is should I remove the whole leaves when we thaw out and replace it with what is in the composter or will the plants be OK till spring when it is the proper time to uncover them ? and replace it with the more finished composted materials . Thanks for all your knowledge and wisdom you have shared I started the garden here at my daughters home june 1 and so this is my first winter garden I went big at least for me and it is so gratifying to be eating our summer veggies I have ordered seeds that are cold tolerant and am currently waiting for the ones from you I am excited to try and grow in a cattle panel unheated greenhouse I placed over my 6x20 main raised bed it has stood up to a 60mph wind storm and now the ice storm so I think it's safe to trust it . Anyway Thanks again for sharing your experience I'm in Indiana similar to your weather I think I'm zone 5 different sites say different things like 5b ect look forward to your answerHave a Great Day
I’d say leaves and leaf mulch is definitely underrated but in the gardening community they are not underrated. I haven’t found any serious gardeners who haven’t used leaves before.
I collect truckloads of leaves after they are put to the curb for pick up. Leaves are really valuable in gardening if you know how to use them correctly. Almost all of my garden soil is made from leaf compost, which retains moisture really good.
Congrats on the success, Luke and thanks for the quality seeds. I've just recieved my Spring 2019 order from you. Ya know, MI just legalized a very interesting plant. What are those grow lights for again? ;) Let me know when the dispensary opens!
I didn't break mine up last year but the soil literally ate 20 lowes bags of leaves. This year I have 30 but I'm covering it with compost and then hay so I could grow garlic
I have a lawn vac, that mulches them. I don't use my mower to mulch leaves because it dulls, & wears the blades out quickly. also hard on the whole machine in general.
Hi Luke In case of Determinate (Bush type tomatoes) does a sucker/side shoot (eminating from the main stem) after some growth itself grow side shoot and so on (just like indeterminate)? If so this would be an unending cycle till the plant dies of because of some disease or heat or frost. I understand that the terminal end ends in flower bud in the main stem as well as suckers thus restricting further top growth. Please share your understanding. Thanks in advance.
Is it OK to simply rototil the leaves into my garden in the fall? Or is it really better to turn the leaves into compost in a compost bin throughout the fall Winter and early Spring? I really like the idea of burying the leaves directly into my garden this fall to save time and energy and it seems like it might actually be better.
We have a huge pile of leaves and grass clippings that the previous owner put into one big pile. They are 2 years old. The bottom has turned black and crumbly but higher up kinda slimy. Is the whole pile ok to put in my new garden?
Could I use a pitchfork to aerate the flattened mass of whole leaves we put down last year in some new beds? Would it help or should I just leave it be? We don't have a way to bag our chopped leaves from the rider mower.
Yes. When you leave the leaves on the top of the soil they take no nutrients out of the soil. The only problem is when it's windy out they can blow around. I put ground up leaves and put on the top of my raised beds and cover them with a tarp, so the worms can do their work and they don't blow around and the soil does not get all of its nutrients washed out by snow and rain. You do have to pull tarp back and water or let some rain in now and then though.
HI I don't have a leaf mulcher, have lots of leaves! Can I use it as bottom layer as a whole leaf and then add horse manure on top? Will mold still grow?
I would like to mow my leaves and collect them. However I have a lot of weeds in my grass such as creeping Charlie, broad leaf plantain, dandelion and crabgrass. Can I still mow the leaves when I have a lot of weeds in my grass?
I put garlic in the ground a few weeks ago and they already started to sprout. Should I have mulched them? Yesterday we got about 3” of snow. Will they still be alright for next year? I’m a little worried about them
And its silly question time... So adding leaf mulch helps bring trees out of dormancy early next season, contradictory to what you showed early this year - throwing snow on to delay the waking cycle. How do you know which to use when?? Not going to effect me as dont grow trees but if I'm thinking it possibly some1 else is and is too embarrassed to ask. Thanks
Luke, I tried leaves as mulch last year, and they all just blew away in the wind and left my soil uncovered. How do you account for that? How do you get your leaf mulch to stay put all fall and winter long? Is there no wind in Michigan?
Thanks Luke. You didn't mention the old fashioned way of breaking down the leaves for mulch. When I was young we would rake the leaves into a big pile and then jump in them, roll around in them, throw hands full of them at each other, etc. Lots of fun for us back then. When the pile was sufficiently broken down we would rake them up and take them to the garden for my dad to put on the garden. Kids now days might not like it but I still enjoy stomping a pile of leaves to make my mulch. My dogs enjoy it too. Much Love
My kids loved to play in them but not have to pick them up, LOL!
Another great benefit of this method of letting the pile break down by itself is that is doubles as habitat for wildlife which they desperately need.
I can't believe how much money I save on soil just simply using all the natural compost I've unknowingly created for the last few years.. All the leaves and grass clippings I've naturally hoarded have now turned into beautiful garden soil its unbelievable to me that I didn't even know I didn't have to buy garden soil when its plentiful right in my yard...
Great video. Last fall was my first with a WORX leaf shredder and I love it. Really breaks down the leaves. I create enough to mulch all my gardens in both the fall and again in spring. Usually wait til the day before a heavy rain or the first heavy snowfall as that will keep the mulch in place and limit how much gets blown around.
I’m on year 3 with mine. Absolute game changer! I collect bags of leaves from friends and neighbors, usually 100-150 bags. Dramatic soil improvement. (I also compost with seaweed and horse manure.)
This past summer I didn’t have access to as many wood chips as usual and so I used oak leaves from our woods. I cannot tell you how much of a difference it made keeping the weeds down in the veggie garden. The soil was very moist too. They really helped during the drought. This fall we mulched our leaves and collected them with our riding mower in the attached bagger. We mulched all of our fruit trees. As an aside, we had built a deck close to one of our huge pines and it became very stressed and lost many branches. Perhaps because of all the concrete piers? So last fall we mulched under that tree with a heavy cover of leaf mulch and broken down wood chips. It was amazing this summer to see how the die back had stopped and the tree looks much healthier. So we love our leaf mulch and we have an abundance of it! Thanks for another great video Luke! 👍🏻
Our home is on 25 acres. When we moved here 20 years ago there was nothing but a few big trees in the 5 acres of lawn around the house. I used wood chips to create beds and then mulched with leaves as the trees I planted in the beds grew. Now I have reduced lawn to less than 3 acres and have many beds which I mulch with leaves I gather each fall with a bagger on my riding mower. I call leaves my fall harvest and I never have enough!
I love using leaf mulch!!! It really is an underutilized resource.
leaf mulch is the only mulch I use in my garden and yard because I have so many huge trees and it is provided to me for free.
I normally just mulch my leaves with the lawnmower. Partially out of laziness but hey my laziness is also good for the soil. I will be throwing some in my garden this year.
What kind of leafs are good for using as mulch???
Great video!
I have been mulching just dry shredded oak leaves for 4 years. It makes a great bedding for vermiculture. Just let it mold for about 6 weeks (moist) then add red composting worms. This will break it down in less than a year and convert to about 30% worm castings in that time. Easy to do. No turning. I do mine in 40 gallon black plastic planting pots. Works out very well. Shredding the leaves reduces them by about 80% as you note in your video.
I'm a huge advocate of leaf mold / leaf mulch. I have about 1.5 acres of lawn, covered with oaks and maples. I shred everything with the tractor, and push it into a big furrow with the chute. Then I chop again & bag, and throw it into the truck. I can mulch an ENORMOUS amount of leaves into a half-dozen truck loads.
I'll spread them on my garden next year as mulch. Last spring's leaf mulch is gone already.... broken down and added to the soil. A nice circle...
Question for you: Have you ever had the bags of leaves turn into really smelly ick smelly? I bagged mine in the Fall, added a bucket of water, poked some holes in the bags and stored them on the side of my house for the winter. When I checked on them yesterday they have a horrible stench. Like rotted smell. I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. If I can fix this by adding some more holes and flipping the bags over and giving it more time, or if I have to throw them away. Any advice?
I have that same mower,Its a Troy Bilt .I absolutely love it .I make fertilizer for free by sucking up the grass clippings I then use the clipping in a clean garbage can for 3 -4 days with about half full of water. The green water will fertilized almost any vegetable..Also, now since the leaves have fallen you can take the chopped leaves and compost them with some grass clippings for compost for spring.
I'll just echo many other comments. I have sincerely learned a great deal watching your videos. Thanks so much 😀
I make my blades as sharp as possible and then using the side discharge, I go around the yard from outside to the center. When I am done it has the consistency of light soil and I put it in a pot with fertilizer and the plants grow great in it.
That's sorta what I do. I have just started composting. I drove around and around to make it into fine mulch. Was sorta fun , too. Then added to my compost bin.
Oh why didn't I think of that? I kind of gave up because we didn't have a bag and raking tiny leaf pieces is a pain.
I live in extreme southern Virginia, and my main concerns in the growing seasons are (1) how to stay ahead of the mold that eats up my tomatoes, and (2) how to use winter mulch that might help mitigate the growing season mold (see number 1). Thank you! Your videos have been wonderfully helpful, even though we live in such different parts of the world!
We have an echo leaf blower vacuum. It sucks up and shreds the leaves so we vacuum our yard in the fall now! It works great!
Nice idea! An alternative is to gather leaves during the season, dry them and crush them
It is also good to put some branches on top so wind doesn't blow everything everywhere. And i think that its great that the leaves get mixed up with some fresh grass when u make mulch this way
Here in Las Vegas it’s hard to find leaves, today I noticed at the park by my house there’s a ton of leaves! I’m gonna get some after work and use my weed wacker and mulch them up in a trash can! Thanks Luke
We have a mulching lawn mower. I run over them once, dump the lawnmower bag out, and then mow over them again. What would normally be a huge volume of leaves is chopped up soooo small that 26 big contractor garbage bags of whole leaves turns into 3-4 bags. We mow our community meridian and get soooo many free leaves. And by using this method, we get that large volume down into a manageable number of bags. I'm heading out tomorrow to get more.
Very good video. I have been making circles around my house with lawn mower. I don't have a bag catcher but I just keep going over and over, sorta fun and putting in my compost pile. Thanks for always being such an inspiration to us fellow newbie's. Lol God is Good.
When you mulch you garden in fall with leafs do you rake them away in spring when you plant or is that what you use for mulch year round?
Thanks for sharing this information, I didn't realize there was a difference to just using whole leaves, I'm sure I'm not the only one lol
Godspeed!
I have a leaf shredder and love it, it works great.
Thanks Luke. Certainly good timing as we have a lot of leaves falling. I just spent the last 7 weeks building my 15 raised beds and filling them with compost. From conception to completion was a bit more than I imagined but they are done and I am well pleased with them. I amended them as your video instructed a couple of weeks ago with kelp, Worm castings, and Uric acid. I planted your garlic in one of my beds and added Trifecta as well to that bed. The garlic is sprouting now. Would it be good to add leaves as mulch to this bed? How about all the beds even though they have no plants until next year? Thanks for all you do Luke.
I get a ton of large oak leaves on my property. I wait until the yard is covered with leaves and then mow them without the bag on the mower, but with the mower on its highest setting. I then mow over them a second time with the bag on the mower and the mower set at a medium height. It breaks down the leaves even better so that I do not end up with so many bags of fluffy leaves. I then spread then on top of my bare garden spaces.
Awesome. I'll be doing this tomorrow.
Another great video dear. I learned lots. I don’t have the equip,nets so used garden scissors and just bunched up leaves twigs and cut through them and then mulch them. Also can put layer of ash on top of them for extra layer of nutrition for winter. I hope that is ok? Thanks again appreciate your grt videos.
Thank you for this video, I didn’t know that you had to make the leaves crumbled before you added them so that explains why my compost bin is just sitting there not doing anything. (again) thank you!
Great info! We added leaf mulch to our garden this year for the first time. Still need to finish raking up the rest if it ever stops raining.
Love this guy. A nice young gentleman
I build my raised gardens out of free, and chemical free, heat treated pallets, and make them 3 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet deep. I just bought a Worx Trivac, which claims to mulch leaves to an 18:1 ratio. I then topped off each garden with one full collection bag apiece, giving them about four or five inches of shredded leaves. We were walloped with several inches of snow before I was able to surround the Macintosh, and Almond trees.
I don't have a lawn mower and my landlord took his mower off his tractor early this year. So instead I raked leaves off the dirt road at the end of the driveway ( no grass underneath pulling at the rake, so it's easier) and I raked them into the driveway and my landlord and I drive over them on our ways about our business. This worked better than mowing them! Then I also went into the nearest big town and took already raked and hefty paper-bagged leaves off the curbs after I had called the cops and asked if it was ok. It was, if the leaves are on the curb.
I just go over my St. Augustine lawn here in north Georgia and mulch the leaves into the grass. It adds frost protection, nitrogen, and there are fewer winter, spring and summer weeds.
Really enjoyed this episode mate, I’ve got loads of leaves 🍁 myself this year. Cheers for the info
Happy gardening 🍁🌱
Very impressed!
Where we live we often get s lot of wind. It seems like the wind just blows the leaves/leaf mulch away in a day or so. 😅😅 I still try to use it though.
at my grandparents they have a few huge oak trees.might get the leaves from around them
What a coincidence, I did a lawn mower montage just like this in my latest video. Great info, thanks!
Don't know if I missed it but instead of shipping extra leaves to compost you could just mow/mulch them up and leave them in the yard.
Hi Luke, is this a good insulation for strawberries in pots during the winter? Ive been using grass clippings and leaves for my compost pile and actually finished my 3rd one so im excited for next spring.
Our property has plenty of Live Oak Leaves that take years to break down, bet I bagged 70 bags last year. This year I increased size of my chicken run and coop and I’m going to use in their run area. They can search for protein and next year I’ll till and hopefully they will increase composting times. Wish my leaves were that thin.
Great idea!
I bag leaves for my chicken run, too. They break them down really fast - less than a week!
Karen my leaves are Live Oak and they are tough as nails, piling up makes great worm beads, especially for fish bait. Lol
I recall years back a Master Gardener (flowers) said to mulch around plants w OAK leaves BCS they didn't mush down & smother them. Don't recall what he did come spring tho!
I do have a mulching mower with a bag.
I could use that to put that under my trees and bushes.
Put it in places i want to grow stuff, and protect in the winter like a blanket.
I usually just mow my grass and leaves and let it stay the place i mowed.
I only bought a mulching mower to mow in places my riding mower could not get.
Leaf mulch works great in my garden as well. Anybody have any experience with pine straw as mulch? You can read where it supposedly increases the acidity of your garden but does it really effect it enough to matter?
Green and brown 🤘 good stuff
I managed to get several bags of leaves done but our weather was awful. Constant rain every day and now early snow that I never was able to get a chance to break down our leaves. Our lawn mower broke down so wasn't an option. I'm almost half tempted to have the kids go outside and just jump on the bags. LOL We've had such an usual fall that I'm hoping I'm going to be able to use these leaves next spring.
So helpful, thanks, Luke!!
Cant wait for.the indoor, got myself a indoor setup aswell
First time mulching my raised garden beds this year. What do you do with what’s left in the spring, incorporate it by turning the soil ?
Yes, that's an excellent use and reduces waste, but it may be better to use the mulch throughout spring to limit any unwanted species from planting themselves in your garden.
If you turn leaves into the soil, the leaves breaking down steals nitrogen from your soil, so you'll be short on nitrogen and will need to add more to your soil. Keeping the leaves on the surface of the soil does not do this. I do 3 things with leaves. 1. Feed them to composting worms to make compost year round. Grind them up first. I use as mulch and I make hemophilic compost also or regular compost. I add lots of coffee grounds and spent tea leaves I collect from local coffee houses, which helps the leave break down must faster, grind them up before adding to pile also. Coffee grounds and tea leaves are very high in nitrogen and other important nutrients for the soil. I can never collect enough fall leaves for the garden. Oh, one last thing I put newspaper or cardboard down in the garden walkways then leaves on; top this really keeps grass and weeds down in the garden. I have only raised beds in the garden. Maintenance takes no time at all year round. I must have used 1000 bags of leaves in my garden last year and making compost. I do serious leave runs When people bag leaves and put them by the curb.
1. A veggie without sun is not as nutritional as those grown in the sun
2. Is a lawn mower that is not electric or gas. It is completely organic this way
3. Happy gardening
Hi, great information!
I was wondering if I'm able to use leaves that had been previously effected by powdery mildew, or had been eaten up by insects, or that have some white flies, aphids, or other worm insects on them; I can cut them all up together, throw them in a bin, wet them down, and leave them to decompose over winter, then come spring, use them as a leaf mold mulch- or is it better to leave those leaves out as they could cause some issues for new plants?
Thank you for your wonderful tutorial video and information! 😊🍁🌱🌷🌻🍅🫑👩🌾
good info thanks
Luke, I don't know where you are in Michigan but I'm in St Clair Shores. I'm so bummed about this early snow. I still have many projects to finish before December. Love your channel bro. All the best.
Maaan I'm from Australia. I'd kill to wake up to snow outside. Looks so beautiful. Yes cold but I like the cold rather than the heat hah
Ha very cool I just finished doing this routine in my yard today 😃
Wonderful information! Will this work with mulching strawberry plants for over the winter?
YES! My neighbors probably think I'm crazy. When they're out there with their leaf blowers. I'm out there with my mulching bagging lawn mower. And a side note, I never seen whole leaves get moldy. I use to use straw in my dog pen. It got moldy filled with creepy bugs and spiders. Then one year I throw leaves in there. And all I found was worms. And of course the dog poop.
Great information, thank you, Luke. I'll keep hoping for more a bigger living space inside and out ~ it'll happen.
Luke that Is so true thanks for sharing that with us
Great benifit tip
This channel is helping me soooo much, to become a better gardener =DDD Keep the great advice coming Luke !!!
start watching from 5:00 onwards
I love the Gator blade for my push mowers. 3 passes over my heavily oak treed yard and they almost disappear. Meanwhile my neighbors waste time and money raking, blowing, sucking and hauling.
I tried both the lawn mower and the weed whipper and the weed whipper gave me a finer mulch. Weed whipper for the win.
Now I'm concerned the lawn mower leaves are too big.
Thank you for sharing this with us. You explain things so well. I gotta buy some things from you soon. Thanks again.
Thanks for your work Luke. Blessings
And you have grass that gets mixed in, that's the vitamin. Good advice. But I don't have grass, just weeds. And I don't trust other people's grass clippings because many people use weed control products which isn't safe while growing food to eat. Any other suggestions to supply nitrogen at the same time as leaves?
When filling garden beds, are using whole leaves ok to use as organic material to fill the bottom of the bed?
I must interject a corrective thought here. "Too much moisture" is NOT a problem in 9B Arizona and Florida. In these places, we need AS MUCH MOISTURE as we can get. It averages so many days between rains in Orlando. The rumor about the rains happening every day at 5 - 6 is simply not true. When they do come in July - August, it's never enough to be a solid rain. The leaves are broken and aerated during a small till cycle, without going to deep and harming the worms. The only thing I would recommend for leaf mulching in 9B is, "use way more than you think". I've laid out tons of leaves only to have them compost down to 2" of soil.
I'm interested in seeing what you are doing for indoor gardening Luke. I got a grow tent myself this year and am doing some Kratky Hydroponics. My basil is like Jurassic period sized but it doesn't taste as good as the raised bed organic stuff. The rest is lettuce for now but it's all perfect. Salanova butter and oak leaf lettuce. Looking to do a cherry tomato and perhaps a lunchbox pepper.
Never thought to weed eat my leaves tbh lol. But I always use my tiller to flip/grind compost
I can NEVER have too many leaves on the homestead. Thankfully, they break-down to almost nothing. Otherwise, they'd be 500' thick in the woods. 😃 😃
Make a 3-4' diameter cylindrical compost bin from 36" hardware cloth. Add layers of weeds or blood meal (N) to chopped (yard vac best at this) leaves (C) to aid microbial degradation. Water very well. Use mulch fork to turn over.
Hi Luke absolutely love your channel but this video came a couple weeks late for me we did do the lawnmower leaf mulching and added it to my compost bin but it wasn't time to mulch the strawberries and garlic yet so I didn't use it for that I used whole dried leaves for those 2 beds when they were ready and we got an ice storm last night so I'm glad they were on the beds but the question is should I remove the whole leaves when we thaw out and replace it with what is in the composter or will the plants be OK till spring when it is the proper time to uncover them ? and replace it with the more finished composted materials . Thanks for all your knowledge and wisdom you have shared I started the garden here at my daughters home june 1 and so this is my first winter garden I went big at least for me and it is so gratifying to be eating our summer veggies I have ordered seeds that are cold tolerant and am currently waiting for the ones from you I am excited to try and grow in a cattle panel unheated greenhouse I placed over my 6x20 main raised bed it has stood up to a 60mph wind storm and now the ice storm so I think it's safe to trust it . Anyway Thanks again for sharing your experience I'm in Indiana similar to your weather I think I'm zone 5 different sites say different things like 5b ect look forward to your answerHave a Great Day
I’d say leaves and leaf mulch is definitely underrated but in the gardening community they are not underrated. I haven’t found any serious gardeners who haven’t used leaves before.
I collect truckloads of leaves after they are put to the curb for pick up. Leaves are really valuable in gardening if you know how to use them correctly. Almost all of my garden soil is made from leaf compost, which retains moisture really good.
Congrats on the success, Luke and thanks for the quality seeds. I've just recieved my Spring 2019 order from you.
Ya know, MI just legalized a very interesting plant. What are those grow lights for again? ;)
Let me know when the dispensary opens!
How about for feeding my lawn? Can I mulch leaves and spread them around my lawn? Will that help my lawn too?
I didn't break mine up last year but the soil literally ate 20 lowes bags of leaves. This year I have 30 but I'm covering it with compost and then hay so I could grow garlic
Can you do this in the summer?
I have a lawn vac, that mulches them.
I don't use my mower to mulch leaves because it dulls, & wears the blades out quickly. also hard on the whole machine in general.
Hi Luke In case of Determinate (Bush type tomatoes) does a sucker/side shoot (eminating from the main stem) after some growth itself grow side shoot and so on (just like indeterminate)? If so this would be an unending cycle till the plant dies of because of some disease or heat or frost. I understand that the terminal end ends in flower bud in the main stem as well as suckers thus restricting further top growth. Please share your understanding. Thanks in advance.
Im assuming it doesn't get too windy where you are based.
Can you use freshly fallen leaves as greens to mix with dried leaves for compost?
Is it OK to simply rototil the leaves into my garden in the fall? Or is it really better to turn the leaves into compost in a compost bin throughout the fall Winter and early Spring? I really like the idea of burying the leaves directly into my garden this fall to save time and energy and it seems like it might actually be better.
Do you put it on the garden beds?
That’s good to know
We have a huge pile of leaves and grass clippings that the previous owner put into one big pile. They are 2 years old. The bottom has turned black and crumbly but higher up kinda slimy. Is the whole pile ok to put in my new garden?
Could I use a pitchfork to aerate the flattened mass of whole leaves we put down last year in some new beds? Would it help or should I just leave it be? We don't have a way to bag our chopped leaves from the rider mower.
can you top dress your garden with the mulched leaves?
Yes. When you leave the leaves on the top of the soil they take no nutrients out of the soil. The only problem is when it's windy out they can blow around. I put ground up leaves and put on the top of my raised beds and cover them with a tarp, so the worms can do their work and they don't blow around and the soil does not get all of its nutrients washed out by snow and rain. You do have to pull tarp back and water or let some rain in now and then though.
HI I don't have a leaf mulcher, have lots of leaves! Can I use it as bottom layer as a whole leaf and then add horse manure on top? Will mold still grow?
I would like to mow my leaves and collect them. However I have a lot of weeds in my grass such as creeping Charlie, broad leaf plantain, dandelion and crabgrass. Can I still mow the leaves when I have a lot of weeds in my grass?
I put garlic in the ground a few weeks ago and they already started to sprout. Should I have mulched them? Yesterday we got about 3” of snow. Will they still be alright for next year? I’m a little worried about them
Genius idea of putting leaves in a garbage can and using weed whacker to break them up! Ill be doing this today thanks Luke!
it works
You can send me some!🙌
good stuff friend, subscribed
Can i mulch my veg patch with leaf mulch in spring?
And its silly question time... So adding leaf mulch helps bring trees out of dormancy early next season, contradictory to what you showed early this year - throwing snow on to delay the waking cycle. How do you know which to use when?? Not going to effect me as dont grow trees but if I'm thinking it possibly some1 else is and is too embarrassed to ask. Thanks
Luke, I tried leaves as mulch last year, and they all just blew away in the wind and left my soil uncovered. How do you account for that? How do you get your leaf mulch to stay put all fall and winter long? Is there no wind in Michigan?
They do blow around, you have to keep them wet for a bit.
Yes sir that easy to add mixture of carbon/nitrogen most people can do which works wonders for your plants and garden beds
Thanks a million,Jehovah bless you,fam,you are the BESTEST BEST.
Great tips :-)
Do you till this your garden
Are you also going to be doing Hydroponics?