Allotments 4 All
General => Top Tips => Topic started by: cookie on October 19, 2006, 17:15:03
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Is it ok to use lime tree leaves mixed with beech leaves as a compost.I have approx. 30 bags to use if it is suitable.
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I can't think of any reason why not, Pine and Laurel in large quantities can be bad but think those are OK... see what the others say!
8)
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Yes. Lucky you! :o :D
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wow, you've struck gold, I'm getting a bit wierd about leaf mould, I keep thinking I want a cordless vacuum for picking up leaves and will go around gathering them up, Ray thinks I've lost it :P
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Hi Cookie, :)
I would take all thirty bags and more. I collect and rot leaves in heaps for a year before digging them into the soil. This year I grew pumpkins and marrow on the heaps.
Lucky you, :) Col
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do you think it's odd of me to think about going down to the local park with a rake and collect bin bags full of fresh tree leaves?
in the dark ofcourse....otherwise i might get beaten up.
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not odd at all wahaj, a lot of us do it!
watch out for dog poo tho >:(
people won't notice you collecting leaves - wear overalls and try to look bored ;)
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not odd at all wahaj, a lot of us do it!
watch out for dog poo tho >:(
people won't notice you collecting leaves - wear overalls and try to look bored ;)
lol kewl. there are a LOT of leaves here. so i mean how am i supposed to make it once i've collected loads of bag fulls?
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the lazy way -
collect leaves when they are dampish, and cram as many as you can into plastic bags
tie the top
barrow them home
pierce bag a couple of times with a fork
stack out of the way in a shady spot
forget them for a year
LEAF MOULD! ;D
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And the textbook way(!) ... for the quantities you've got, this may be worthwhile.
Basically, all this needs to be is a large square (4 foot square or so) with the corners made from 4-by4s, fence-posts or similar, with the side walls formed from chainlink/chicken-wire fastened to the corner posts. Site it by the compost heaps or wherever seems sensible.
A lid of old carpet or something porous but heavy will stop your leaves from blowing away.
Chuck all the leaves in. They need to be damp (water them if they aren't): if they dry out they don't make leafmould, more leafcrunch... ;)
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found that out the hard way triffid ... LEAFIBIX! :-[ ;D
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;D
me too.
Can't use the fork-poked bags method on our site; the foxes think we've left them wonderful toys. They pull em around, tear em open, toss the leaves about ...
(*realises we have asbo foxes*)
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Hi all,
I collect mine from local streets with a big bike trailer, I`m past worrying what people think but most who take an interest are friendly anyway.
Sometimes you can get the local council workers to drop off a truck load if you ask.
Col
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nice! thanks for the help guys.
I'll still wait till sunday night i think when the street are really quiet.
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Lime tree leaves are particularly good as they rot down faster. We have 5 lime trees which have provided masses of compost over the years, but sadly we have had to pollard them, and there won't be so much this year :'(
(They were shading out neighbours' gardens and windows).
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be careful going around the park in the dark, I'm getting worse about leaves, I just think it's all so much waste :o
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be careful going around the park in the dark, I'm getting worse about leaves, I just think it's all so much waste :o
yea....theres a big light where i'll be collecting the leaves...it's right in front of the mayor house so...lol.
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Leaf crunch is good stuff for mulching; if I dig out the mature stuff from the centre of our leaf mountain, it's too solid, and not much can grow through it.
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thank you robert! good idea, will spread on a non windy day ::) :D
when I said I used leafmould for mulching on a course at barnsdale I got a proper wigging :-[
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Once it gets well rained on, it becomes much more resistant to blowing about.
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we dig a load in at the bottom of the carrot bed then cover it over with 6 to 8 inches of soft soil, the carrots love it, we had some 8" long and, because we covered it with fleece, no carrot fly :D
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I'll be going out tonight to rake some leaves into a bag. I'm taking one of those bags that my tonne of top soil came in.....so if i can fill one tonight...and then another maybe another night then i should have plenty to mulch my beds with next year.
And it had been raining all day so they should be all nice and wet.
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wonderful stuff. Once upon a time I just used to think that leaves were a nuisance :o - now I think of them as gold leaf 8)
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i've just been out in the pouring rain and collected about half a tonne's worth of leaves...not that weight i mean......but half of a tonne bag. that'll have to do. how much leaf mould will that make for me i wonder....
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Interesting about Barnsdale. I was reading Organic magazine ( an old copy) and they trialled various overwinter methods.
1 Left bare
2 grazing rye
3 leaf mould covering
The crops of Swiss Chard the next year were ( from memory)
1 14kg
2 21kg
3 31kg
Guess which method I'm using this year.
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how much leaf mould will that make for me i wonder....
Wahaj, no matter how much, it'll never be enough :D
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I was sitting waiting for a friend outside her flat for about 20 mins yesterday watching a man hoover all his leaves up. I was just about to go and ask him what he was going to do with them all, when she came back out.
She was emotional so I couldn't carry on with my leaf request ...............
I feel a wahaj tonne sack moment coming on this weekend.
;D
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Interesting about Barnsdale. I was reading Organic magazine ( an old copy) and they trialled various overwinter methods.
1 Left bare
2 grazing rye
3 leaf mould covering
The crops of Swiss Chard the next year were ( from memory)
1 14kg
2 21kg
3 31kg
Guess which method I'm using this year.
really interesting dj! :o well remembered and thanks for posting :)
if only it werent swiss chard (http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e220/supersprout/smilies/yuck-1.gif)
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because our alloment site was a swamp last year, we had to build all our beds from nothing, we dug the smelly grass up and turned it, covered it with cardboard, then we had to fill them, all 9 new beds. luckily, we are next to a bowling green, we got all the old, composted leaves and grass, loads of well rotted manure from the local farm brought in in bags and every bit of soil we could find, including an old disused compost heap, we've never grown such good brassicas and carrots, soft fruit and leeks as we did in the beds full of leaf mould :D
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we get ours from the council, its nice and rotted because it comes year on year so its lish just covered 1/3 of our plot with it! bloody heavy though
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when we moved last year I couldn't bear to leave mine behind. there was a big old oak tree at the bottom of the drive and I'd filled at least 6 bin bags with lovely wet leaves that had rotted down beautifully. my boyfriend had somehow persuaded a couple of his friends from work to give us a hand loading the van but I was too embarrassed to add 6 dirty wet bin bags to the pile of stuff to be shifted, so I hid them and went back later on my own to pick them up in the car!
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I've just filled about 7 or 8 bags with leafmould from a friendly freecycler. Given that I haven't got much else in the way of decent compost, except some rotting horse manure, what would you say would be the best use of the precious leafmould? Mulching, digging in, mixing with the manure,saving for spring etc? It's about 2 years old, if that makes a difference.
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in this order IMO caroline:
make/use for seed/potting compost
mulch areas which are compacted
mulch anywhere that isn't mulched
if I dug, I'd dig in to compacted areas for a faster result :)
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I've just filled about 7 or 8 bags with leafmould from a friendly freecycler. Given that I haven't got much else in the way of decent compost, except some rotting horse manure, what would you say would be the best use of the precious leafmould? Mulching, digging in, mixing with the manure,saving for spring etc? It's about 2 years old, if that makes a difference.
anything really. if you've got bad soil and you're planting new plants...you can add some into the bottom of the planting hole to give plants a good chance of settling....or your can use it in spring to use as a mulch around your plants and it'll get worked in by the worms.
personally i'd mix the compost, manure and leaf mould into one mixture and then you've got the best of all worlds.
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thank you, Asda, we went yesterday and asked for the 2 big bags of leaves the lady was brushing up, she looked at us a bit strangely until we explained, then said we could clean them up around the petrol station if we liked, so, today went and collected 4 big bags
also went to collect the leaves off the bowling green next to the lottie, only thing is, bad backs, bad knees, bad neck pain, it'll all be worth it for the crops we'll get next year and no dog mess in it !! :)
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Thanks- I'll probably do a bit of each in the end!
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i posted on freecycle and got emailed a mesage about Horse Chestnut moth. This moth overwinters in the leaves and will not be destroyed by composting. And he gave me a link
http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0806/horsechestnutproblems.asp
But so far all that i have been offered is miles away.
I am going to go up and build my leaf mould bin tomorrow, our car park in work is surrounded by trees and were in a business park so i am going to speak to the guys and see if they can bag up some leaves for me :-)
Will also try the local council and the tree surgon that drops off our wood chips.
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Yesterday afternoon I went round the corner to the terribly nice manicured housing estate and collected four bin bags from the turning circle where the maple leaves had all conveniently blown together.
I got several polite smiles, a couple of looks from behind curtains and an occasional hello. They probaby though I was on community service as I was garden dressed and having a seriously bad hair day ( well, it was Sunday)
Only in Britain would people be too polite to ask what the h**l I was doing. Had to smile. and as a bonus I picked up a couple of bags of free stable manure on the way back from the tip.
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Yesterday afternoon I went round the corner to the terribly nice manicured housing estate and collected four bin bags from the turning circle where the maple leaves had all conveniently blown together.
I got several polite smiles, a couple of looks from behind curtains and an occasional hello. They probaby though I was on community service as I was garden dressed and having a seriously bad hair day ( well, it was Sunday)
Only in Britain would people be too polite to ask what the h**l I was doing. Had to smile. and as a bonus I picked up a couple of bags of free stable manure on the way back from the tip.
i did my leaf picking about 1am on a sunday night because i didn't want to be laughed at by the kids lol.
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we've come to a stage where we don't care what anyone thinks, it must come with age, we tend to laugh as well :D
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Agreed, I do the care in the community look really well. I have to tart up for work, weekends and evenings are an opportunity to express my real personality and if I want to go and play in the leaves and hug big bags of horse poo, then I d**n well will.
(if that's ok)
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just don't hug them too hard ;D
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It looks like I am still the only lazybones who lets the council bag up leaves and then picks em all up before the truck turns up... There can be all sorts of rubbish in the bags as well..
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Tempted by the leaves on the green verge on way to the station each morning BUT put off by the number of people with dogs pooping without scooping that I see. :(