And I’m getting a really good leaf harvest now they’re finally dropping.
I’ve been collecting them up to make into leaf mould. If you’re not doing this already, I really recommend it. It’s a fantastic soil conditioner. It is full of organic matter and, more importantly, full of just the right kind of microbes for everything from a forest garden to a perennial bed - all those plants that will grow in a mature, forest ecosystem. If you think about it, these plants in the wild would expect a yearly dose of fallen leaves. This leaf fall is not just pretty, it’s a key event in the calendar for forest ecosystems. In fact, if you think about it, it’s basically soil critter Christmas!
This feast of autumn leaves means it’s time for microbes in the soil to get fat! Or certainly for their numbers to swell as they take on the monumental task of gorging themselves until every last leaf has been turned into soil - into organic matter, into plant food, into more fungi, bacteria, predatory protozoa, nematodes, micro arthropods and arthropods. In short - more workers for those forest plants to help them find the right kinds of foods they need in the year to come. To get back to our Christmas analogy - it’s like us stocking up on new socks, that new gadget for the kitchen or toys for the kids - the things we need to keep us going through the year. Each different species of microbe has a different specialism - a different mineral, for example, that they’re particularly good at mining for. So long as these microbes are there in the soil, the plants can call on them when a particular mineral is needed to help grow flowers intead of leaves or to help synthesise the appropriate substances needed to fight off a pest attack.
In a garden environment, we’ve taken a bit of a step away from natural ecosystems and tend to have a variety of different ecosystem types all rubbing up against each other. Fallen leaves are fine in areas that grow the types of plants found in woodland habitats - perennial beds, shrubberies or woodland gardens, for example. But we don’t want our lawn or driveway to start thinking about growing forest plants, so fallen leaves and the soil environment they create are a problem for these areas and it needs us to step in and help out by raking up those leaves. We’re basically holding succession back - halting the natural inclination of the environment to grow up, mature and become a forest.
So we rake up leaves from lawns, driveways, patios, vegetable beds - anywhere we don’t want to grow those forest style plants. I either pile mine up into huge mounds, or where I can, I make chicken wire pens to pour them in to. On a small scale, you can fill black bin bags punched with holes or hessian sacks. Make sure your leaves are damp, but not totally sodden. Site them somewhere shady and leave for at least a year. Apply the resultant black, crumbly leaf mould in the autumn to any appropriate garden beds bereft of their own festival of fallen leaves!
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