Easy Ways to Make Leaf Mold

Enjoy the fall

When the leaves on the trees start to change color it’s beautiful, but it’s also a warning that winter is on the way. Any day now, those leaves will fall, and when they do they can cause problems. If they’re left on paths and sidewalks they can create a slippery mess. On lawns they cause bleached patches on the grass, and if they fall in the water they can clog up ponds. It’s time to reach for the rake or the leaf blower, but once you’ve collected those leaves, what do you do with them? If you’re dumping them out with the trash then you’re wasting a valuable resource for your garden.

Use your leaves

If you have a bare patch of soil in the your garden, and it’s too late to sow a green manure cover crop for the winter, then consider using your collected leaves as a mulch. They’ll protect the soil structure during the bad weather, and in spring when you want to plant the soil you can simply rake the leaves up again. And if you have plant crowns that need some protection from the worst of the weather, then a pile of leaves can make a real difference.

If you don’t need the leaves in the garden then try turning them into black gold – leaf mold. Leaf mold is just compost that’s made only with leaves, but because leaves can take a long time to break down it needs to be made separately from your regular compost. If you put leaves in your compost pile then they’ll still be there, intact, when it’s time to dig the compost out. But leaf mold is easy to make, and takes very little effort once you’ve collected the leaves.

And here’s a top leaf mold tip – you can collect leaves using the lawnmower. Just raise the blades so they’re not cutting the grass, and collect the chopped up leaves in the hopper. Not only is this an easy way to collect the leaves, but they’ll rot down quicker for being chopped up.

Leaf mold methods

If you have collected your leaves in plastic sacks then you can make leaf mold simply by tying the tops of the sacks shut and making a few holes in the bag with a garden fork. The leaves will rot down more quickly if they’re wet when you bag them, or if you add a little water before you close the sacks. Just leave the bags out of sight and forget about them, and your leaf mold will magically make itself! An alternative is to use an old cloth sack, which will breathe and allow the rain in to the leaves.

You can make a simple leaf mold bin using 4 wooden stakes and some wire mesh. Just empty the leaves in and leave them to their own devices. The winter weather will start the rotting process for you. Or you can use an old planter, a big heap, or any kind of container that allows the leaves to breathe and allows some moisture in.

Be patient

Making leaf mold is not quick composting, but it is low maintenance. Once you’ve collected your leaves together and set up your leaf mold composter then you don’t have to do anything to it for a whole year. This time next year, if you want to, you can use your leaf mold as a low fertility soil improver that you dig into your garden beds, or as a great mulch. It will look like half composted leaves – which is exactly what it is.

If you can leave your leaf mold to mature for two years then you’ll have a much finer compost, which is a great basis for making your own potting mix. You can add soil or grit or higher fertility materials to your own specifications, and what you’ll have is a homemade, weed free potting compost. And all because you didn’t put those leaves out with the trash!