I put together a leaf mold pile today, and wanted to show someone.

[Growdo Baggins]

I'm new to growing anything really. But we finally have a house and I did a little garden this year and have been growing pot indoors since February. Very recently I picked up the audio book Teaming With Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and have been blown away by the idea of all that life in the soil working together in this perfect system. I'm going to start with some pre made living soil for the pot plants but eventually would like to make my own. I've been making worm bins and compost piles to get ready for my garden as it grows. I've been seeing all the brown bags of leaves in people neighborhoods all week so I started grabbing them in the work truck and bringing them home. I did some reading about it and here's what I made.

All of the materials I had on hand, really in just the right amounts. The fencing I found buried in my lawn earlier this summer. A few wires decided to start sticking up and they fucked my mower blades all up, got them off track. With great effort I pulled it up and it ended up being just the right size.

I had some perforated drainage pipe left from a foundation drain I put in and used them to help air get into the pile.

I watered and smashed down every layer. I would've bet you that I had grabbed way more bags of leaves than would fit, my wife would've said the same thing but I would've lost. It ended up fitting perfectly. I guess I'll see you in 2 years.

 

[iTarzan]

Nice project. Post a pic every month so we can watch. Maybe every 3 months if you are pressed for time.

 

[Creeperpark]

That's great work you are doing friend, you're smart. The best gardens start with homemade compost. I always shredded my leaves with a lawnmower before putting them into my bin for a faster breakdown. Plus I add coffee grounds from the local coffee shop and table scraps from the kitchen to my leaves.

In order for a pile to heat and decompose you have to have carbon and a protein source. The 4 requirements for a good compost are nitrogen, carbon, air, and water. I layer my bin with leaves, hay, coffee grounds and it gets hot. You can see steam coming off the bin on cold days. Leaves are carbon, coffee grounds are nitrogen and you need both. Keep us posted. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

 

[Switcher56]

That's great work you are doing friend, you're smart. The best gardens start with homemade compost. I always shredded my leaves with a lawnmower before putting them into my bin for a faster breakdown. Plus I add coffee grounds from the local coffee shop and table scraps from the kitchen to my leaves.

In order for a pile to heat and decompose you have to have carbon and a protein source. The 4 requirements for a good compost are nitrogen, carbon, air, and water. I layer my bin with leaves, hay, coffee grounds and it gets hot. You can see steam coming off the bin on cold days. Leaves are carbon, coffee grounds are nitrogen and you need both. Keep us posted. Thanks for sharing your work with us.

As I as it was intended that way, not sent to the land fill. Even if the grass doesn't need mowing, when there is enough on the ground. They get ground

 

[Three Berries]

I use to take peoples grass clippings and use for mulch. It gets pretty stinky though but would be good for the compost assuming no weed killers used recently.

Add a handful of ground limestone to that pile every once in a while to speed up the decomposing.

 

[KIS]

That will be excellent in a year or two.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

That will be excellent in a year or two.

Bro you're not going to believe me but I put this together bc in one of the Coot's podcast episodes he said he used leaf mold to make a really good living soil. You said you gotta watch out for any pesticides or herbicides that people may have used in municipal mulches. I figured I'd risk it. I've been picking up people's brown bags of leaves off the side of the road during my work day for a month. I have 3 piles of leaves this size now. But I just piled the rest up, I didn't have anymore material to build another of these.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

If I dumped some molasses mixed with water on top of these leaves would it help to break things down faster?

 

[VerdantGreen]

one thing to undertand about leaf mold is that the leaves are largely broken down by fungal action whilst compost is made largely by bacterial action. Obviously worms are involved in both processes but it is better, especially if you have a lot of leaves, to make leaf mould and garden compost in two separate piles.
VG

 

[flylowgethigh]

If I dumped some molasses mixed with water on top of these leaves would it help to break things down faster?

Microbes and nitrogen are what is decomposing my compost pile. I also toss any mushrooms I find, and inside I see myco now. Horse and cow poop, rabbit poop are good ways to get nitrogen IF the pasture was not sprayed.

I should pick up bags of leaves and add them to the pile too.

 

[Chunkypigs]

I'm new to growing anything really. But we finally have a house and I did a little garden this year and have been growing pot indoors since February. Very recently I picked up the audio book Teaming With Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and have been blown away by the idea of all that life in the soil working together in this perfect system. I'm going to start with some pre made living soil for the pot plants but eventually would like to make my own. I've been making worm bins and compost piles to get ready for my garden as it grows. I've been seeing all the brown bags of leaves in people neighborhoods all week so I started grabbing them in the work truck and bringing them home. I did some reading about it and here's what I made.

All of the materials I had on hand, really in just the right amounts. The fencing I found buried in my lawn earlier this summer. A few wires decided to start sticking up and they fucked my mower blades all up, got them off track. With great effort I pulled it up and it ended up being just the right size.
View attachment 18788535

I had some perforated drainage pipe left from a foundation drain I put in and used them to help air get into the pile.
View attachment 18788540
View attachment 18788536 View attachment 18788538
View attachment 18788539
I watered and smashed down every layer. I would've bet you that I had grabbed way more bags of leaves than would fit, my wife would've said the same thing but I would've lost. It ended up fitting perfectly. I guess I'll see you in 2 years.

nice! mowing them first to chop them into smaller bits will help you get more in and also help the pile hold moisture.

check out this video for a proven design that uses pipes to get proper oxygen and a daily watering system to keep proper moisture levels in the pile.

Johnson Su Bioreactor



detailed instructions on building

https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/_assets/documents/johnson-su-bioreactor.pdf

 

[Growdo Baggins]

nice! mowing them first to chop them into smaller bits will help you get more in and also help the pile hold moisture.

check out this video for a proven design that uses pipes to get proper oxygen and a daily watering system to keep proper moisture levels in the pile.

Johnson Su Bioreactor



detailed instructions on building

https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/_assets/documents/johnson-su-bioreactor.pdf

That's pretty good.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

one thing to undertand about leaf mold is that the leaves are largely broken down by fungal action whilst compost is made largely by bacterial action. Obviously worms are involved in both processes but it is better, especially if you have a lot of leaves, to make leaf mould and garden compost in two separate piles.
VG

That's good stuff thanks. Is there anything I can do to speed up the fungaly driven process?

Also I scored 5 big pumpkin gourde type things and have been grabbing about 5 bags of leaves a day from houses I've driven past this week. I'm going to create a separate pile with some leaves and the pumpkins as a compost pile.

I understand how the leaves are fungaly driven break down process and compost is bacterially driven, but I don't yet understand how the end product differs. I've googled how is leaf mold different than compost but as I understand it is just got less nutrients in leaf mold.

 

[VerdantGreen]

That's good stuff thanks. Is there anything I can do to speed up the fungaly driven process?

Also I scored 5 big pumpkin gourde type things and have been grabbing about 5 bags of leaves a day from houses I've driven past this week. I'm going to create a separate pile with some leaves and the pumpkins as a compost pile.

I understand how the leaves are fungaly driven break down process and compost is bacterially driven, but I don't yet understand how the end product differs. I've googled how is leaf mold different than compost but as I understand it is just got less nutrients in leaf mold.

the best way t speed up the fungal leaf breakdown is to keep the pile evenly wet. Many people make leaf mould in big plastic bags with a few drainage holes - so as to keep them all damp/wet. but a pile is fine too. perhaps cover the top to stop the top layer drying out. Some leaves rot down pretty quickly and some like beach or oak will take a couple of years.
Leaf mold is actually fairly low in nutrients compared to compost but it is excellent at improving the soil structure and moisture holding and increasing the life in the soil.
VG

 

[VerdantGreen]

P.s. shredding the leaves with a mower or similar will also help speed things up (as mentioned by @Creeperpark above) - but not really so practical for big piles like yours.

 

[Growdo Baggins]

P.s. shredding the leaves with a mower or similar will also help speed things up (as mentioned by @Creeperpark above) - but not really so practical for big piles like yours.

My dang mower is broken and it's winter so fixing it wasn't a pressing issue. I was going to put them in a garbage can and weed whack them, but there's just too much. I have gotten lucky a couple times and scored bags that were already ground up, they were super heavy

 

[Plookerkingjon]

I have 22 years composting but I compost with hippies and in a poor community so I may not live up to the expectations of some of the people that are already posting in your thread but anytime you want some advice and some tips we use up here to great effect with great results that we don't take pictures of and throw on IC mag and be more than willing to help you maybe in a private message or something I don't want to expose myself to some of the trolls here and I see mag but I really like what you're doing and I encourage you to keep following Nature's lead and not humans

 

[Growdo Baggins]

I have 22 years composting but I compost with hippies and in a poor community so I may not live up to the expectations of some of the people that are already posting in your thread but anytime you want some advice and some tips we use up here to great effect with great results that we don't take pictures of and throw on IC mag and be more than willing to help you maybe in a private message or something I don't want to expose myself to some of the trolls here and I see mag but I really like what you're doing and I encourage you to keep following Nature's lead and not humans

Well I very much appreciate that. I can't seem to send you a private message but if you wanna send me one I'd love to hear what you've got to say and I've got a few questions I'd like you run by you too. Thanks

 

[VerdantGreen]

My dang mower is broken and it's winter so fixing it wasn't a pressing issue. I was going to put them in a garbage can and weed whack them, but there's just too much. I have gotten lucky a couple times and scored bags that were already ground up, they were super heavy

Your pile looks good, best to now kind of forget it for a year or two whilst they break down.... maybe spray it with the hosepipe sometimes after dry weather if you remember... but in many ways your work is done and it just needs time now. - start another project like a compost heap in the meantime...
VG

 

[Growdo Baggins]

Your pile looks good, best to now kind of forget it for a year or two whilst they break down.... maybe spray it with the hosepipe sometimes after dry weather if you remember... but in many ways your work is done and it just needs time now. - start another project like a compost heap in the meantime...
VG

Sounds good. My next plan is to use the 8 pumpkins I found and mix them with leaves in a separate pile. I'll do my best to get the ratios right. I'll prob grind up the leaves for this pile. Hey man thanks for all the advice and info. Hope you have a happy holiday.