Leaves scrounged from my neighbours
As the Southern Hemisphere is moving into Winter, Autumn first provides her most important harvest: fallen leaves. Natures perfect cycle of replenishment to the soil and the provision of nourishment for all life in the ecosystem. And what do we do with this abundant gift? We sweep it up into plastic bags and send it off to land fill. Come spring we drive to the garden center and buy compost in more plastic bags.
Where did we get this idea that leaves are unsightly and need to be done away with? When you think about it for a minute it really makes no sense. I appreciate that leaves on hard surfaces are not a good idea so lets sweep them into the flower beds where the mulching provides moisture and nutrition through the harsher winter months.
Exquisite winter colour well nourished by compost
Once you get excited about the difference it makes to your garden (check out my winter colour!) you get quite greedy for the stuff. I frequently stop on verges as I see people raking leaves into bags and ask them if I can have them. I get a few strange looks (and comments) but most people are too flummoxed to say no! hopefully I leave them with some food for thought.
Easy to make wire leaf cage
I am currently just making a big pile with the leaves but if you prefer a slightly neat tidier approach I’ve also made this very simple cage out of wire fencing.
In a few months beautiful quality compost for free!
July 4, 2013 at 4:13 pm
I have bookmarked your blog site since it talks to similar as http://www.dirtexchange.net/. I have found it extremely useful.
July 5, 2013 at 6:54 am
Hi Nicole. Your business is pretty cool as well. Good to see you are going the organic route.
June 14, 2013 at 5:15 pm
Hi Jane-I also attended the recent seminar on Sustainability hosted by alive2green which I thoroughly enjoyed-actually we did chat briefly to each other-my name is Andre and I am the founder of a Non Profit called Green Mission.Anyway I just wanted to add another ‘C’ letter to your article about the 3 ‘C’- the 4th C would represent ‘Connectedness through Community’. As the seminar demonstrated it is important to get together as a conscious community and share ideas,knowledge and wisdom.I always refer this to ‘FaceLook’ and not just Facebook.I think in this day and age people are so busy with their hectic schedules that there is no time for getting together as a community and just openly discussing all these important issues like composting,rain barrel harvesting systems etc etc.I am planning to start some sort of ‘Conscious Evening’ gathering and I will keep you posted.Thank you for all your interesting articles and keep up the great work.Regards Andre
June 18, 2013 at 8:24 am
Hi Andre. I LOVE your fourth C. It speaks to the reality that we are all in this together and we will only be able to reverse the harm we have done to the planet if we work together. The science tells us that everything is interconnected so working in isolation won’t achieve very much. Your intention to gather people together sounds great. Please keep us all posted. You are doing fantastic work on your website: http://www.greenmission.org. Keep sharing all this great information with us.
June 11, 2013 at 8:59 am
Something for nothing awesome!
June 13, 2013 at 9:25 am
Isn’t it true that gardening in all its aspects is pretty awesome and much of it costs nothing? Not much else about modern lifestyles can boast as much.
June 10, 2013 at 4:40 pm
Lovely Jane!
June 13, 2013 at 9:22 am
Thanks Victoria. I know you are a long standing composter!