Leaf Me Alone!

A gardener I'm not. I try to act like one, tackling gardener tasks such as digging, raking, weeding, mowing, watering, and, I hope, my skills will develop as time goes by. As a by-product of the weeding and mowing, we also do a bit of modest composting. And now, coupled to the composting, we are trying to make a bit of leaf mold. Apparently,it may take some time...

Leaf mold is what’s left when the dead, fallen leaves from deciduous trees and shrubs are heaped up and allowed to rot down. As they slowly moulder, only the toughest bits remain, eventually forming spongy, dark brown crumbs to rival any dessert topping. Leaf mold is easy to make, free of pests, diseases and weeds (unless you gather it from where they’re seeding), a delight to handle, and you can’t possibly overdose your soil on it. The hidden alchemy that brings it about – the countless microorganisms that drive decay – gives leaf mold its almost magical quality.

Raking up all the damp leaves is best done in the absence of pesky gusty winds.

The difference between compost and leaf mold?  Leaf mold is not the same as compost. Compost is produced by bacterial decomposition. Leaf mold is produced by fungal decomposition. Compost is hot, aerobic, and quick. Leaf mold is cool, slow, and can be produced with little oxygen. This means you don't have to turn it. Where compost needs a variety of ingredients to attain the right carbon to nitrogen ration to feed  the bacteria, leaf mold needs only the one ingredient-leaves. Leaves have a Carbon: Nitrogen ratio ranging from 80:1 to 200:1. There is some nitrogen available, but not enough to allow the bacteria population to explode.

Getting the piles of leaves picked up and compressed into the garbie bags is the main job.

Leaf mold serves as a soil conditioner rather than a natural fertilizer. It primarily changes the structure of the soil rather than serving nutrient needs. Its the fungus. All the little hairs of the fungus grabbing onto soil particles help to bind loose soil, while at the same time the hyphae helps to break up compact soil. The natural growth habit of the fungus will move from the leaf mold to the surrounding soil in all dimensions. Start with a small area of leaf mold, end up with a greater volume of better soil. Leaf mold will continue to break down until the only thing left is stable humus which will remain in the soil for decades to centuries, taking a fire to destroy it. Until then, the leaf mold is rich in organic components: humic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, and stuff I never heard of. It is complex and impossible to manufacture. As the foundation of the soil ecosystem, there is nothing better.

Tons of  Carbon C and very little Nitrogen N

E-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y  the raking is completed. All that remains is fitting the collected
leaves into the bags for storage for a year or two....