How many bags of leaves will you get this fall?

I finally managed to get some leaf work done instead of leafing it alone. 

 Result three large wheel barrows of fine mulched mainly oak leaf .
I've topped up three composter bins with it and started to fill a new bin solely with the mulch .. Back on station tomorrow , hopefully I'll break the back of it with another four or five loads of mulched leaf.

southern gardener wrote:just watched this vid on composting leaves. REALLY interesting.   what do you guys think?  I think he's right!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9OhxKlrWwc

I just watched this video.  Contrary to what a few posts in this thread said, the video says the leaves are very nutritious and provide all the nutrition that plants need.  That probably isn't 100% accurate, but still they do provide nutrition.

Also, for those of you who have access to coffee grounds.  He said 5 to 10 lbs of coffee grounds in a 4x4x4 bin is just right to help with the decomposition.  Since I have collected about 50 lbs of coffee grounds, I better get out and shred some leaves (which will reduce my 4 x 4 x 4 pile about 50%) so I will have to go suck up some more leaves.

Well,  well I never ,

 I managed to fill the spare bin with mulched leaf today , had to compress it down several times as there was so much .

 I've still got about another 1/2 cubic metres worth of mulched leaves to go tomorrow or on Thursday if the dry weather still holds.

What's the betting that as soon as I get it all tidied away the wind will spring up and tear the remaining leaves off the oak trees and cover the gardens and paths once again.

No bets here.  I tidy up,  and then get pelted with new leaves.

I'll get to join in the leaf madness this year, our new property has lots of deciduous trees so come autumn I'll be raking and bagging!

First thanks for the video. Always learning about composting and this was also entertaining too.

In this area the leaves have fallen and got my last load of leaves this week from my neighbor so now it is time for mother nature to do the work and the freezing and thawing should help break down the leaves by spring.  Then my plan is to add greens, most grass clippings and kitchen waste to the bin with last season's leaves.

ericam wrote:I'll get to join in the leaf madness this year, our new property has lots of deciduous trees so come autumn I'll be raking and bagging!

You are fortunate to have it right on your property, congratulations!  I have to drive a few minutes to get to my best sources and load up and then unload everything.

Two more & a bit big loads of finely mulched oak leaves today see the vast majority of leaves cleared out of the garden and everything reasonable clear for the arrival of any bad weather ..

I just hope the" ......  lazy fellow ......    "  next door pulls his finger out and clears the foot of leaves & dog muck off his garden & lawn before they are , " Gone with the Wind "  and arrive in  my garden instead.

plantoid wrote: before they are , " Gone with the Wind "  and arrive in  my garden instead.

We clean the leaves from our sidewalk gutters so they don't wash to the storm drain and clog it.  We are on a corner so we get the privilege of removing all the neighbors' leaves also!  Plus off the pretty front lawn and flower beds.  And no, I didn't save neighborhood leaves for composting.  Most have jiffy gardener services who apply chemical treatments.  I'm really trying to be commercial pesticide-free (except for occasional Neem) in the back yard where my boxes are.

I originally was not going to fool with collecting and saving my leaves this year since I had such an abundance of compost in the making, but then my lawn guy shows up to mow and clean up my yard from the leaf fall. I had one empty 3X3X3 bin available and let him put it all in there, it was just too much to bear to let all that good material go to waste. All of the leaves are finely shredded and he filled the bin as full as it could be filled. WOW!  

Glad you took advantage of the already shredded leaves, bob. You will be glad later on in the year when you use that last load of leaves.

Just thought I would share a few statistics on my compost/leaf collection efforts this fall/winter.

It takes 25 gallons of leaves to make 5 gallons of finely shredded leaves.  That is an 80% reduction in volume just by finely shredding the leaves.

It took 65 five gallon buckets of finely shredded material to fill a 4 x 4 x 3 compost bin.  That is 325 gallons of uncomposted finely shredded material.

I filled the bin with:
13 five gallon buckets of finely shredded leaves
14 five gallon buckets of grass clippings
16 five gallon buckets of 1 year old horse manure with wood shaving bedding
22 five gallon buckets of four week old compost (50% leaves & 50% grass)
2 gallons coffee grounds
1 gallon alfalfa pellets
1 cup blood meal

It took about 5 days for the temps to get up to 140 degrees.  The pile stayed over 100 degrees for about 2 weeks.  I turned the pile after the temp was reduced to just below 100 degrees.  Added water, coffee grounds, a few handfuls of blood meal, and some alfalfa pellets.  The temps never went back above 100 degrees.  I just turned it again and added coffee grounds and a little blood meal.  It has only risen to 50 degrees this time.  It is either too cold or mostly finished composting.  But the oak leaves usually take at least 3 to 6 months to fully decompose so I don't really think it is finished.  I will just let it be for now and turn it every month just to keep it aerated and moist.  It was full of earthworms which is unusual for my yard to have any visible earthworms.

What with the freezing nights and now the rain, which should freeze things even worse once the temperature plunges again, I expect much of my pile is or will be simply frozen into a huge leaf and horse poo-poo rock. My pile was going like gangbusters after a while, but I expect I'll have to simply wait out the really cold weather before it picks up again.

At least in the meantime, those of us with freezing weather can still have our compost piles benefit from the way freezing and re-freezing crystallizes and breaks down plant cells.

I am hoping that this cold weather will break everything down and make my piles of leaves easier to turn to composting in the spring.

Had a nice compost pile going but am sure it is frozen solid.

 

Yolos
I would be thinking your cold snaps aren't enough to drastically alter temp's in your compost piles.
Maybe you did the 18 day Berkley ???

yolos that was very informative about the makeup of your compost pile and must have reflected an enormous amount of labour with more to come.
No wonder you have earthworms, they have found worm heaven.
It would be interesting to get a soil test, even though I believe that compost itself is not  classed as soil for the testers. Or is that Mel's Mix that is not classed as soil?
You should be able to grow humungeous amount of veggies this year.