Make the Most of Leaf Mould in Your Garden

Contributed Post

Image Credit: Pxhere

Many gardeners would go to great lengths to make their plants as healthy and beautiful as possible. They might consider buying top of the range mulch or using insulation to wrap their plants up warm during the winter months. But all of these things are expensive and not really a great way to spend your gardening budget.

Especially when you consider that all the ingredients you need to keep your garden happy are right there in front of you!

Leaf mould is the perfect solution to many gardener’s problems. If you were wondering how to create a perfectly organic garden with little effort? Leaf mould. If you wanted to keep your plants warm? Leaf mould. If you wanted a better use for fallen leaves than the trash? You got it – leaf mould!

In fact, leaf mould is so good, it’s incredible that so many gardener simply chuck their fallen leaves out.

Here’s how to make the good stuff.

How to Make Leaf Mould

Step One

Gather up all the fallen leaves in your garden taking care to pick them out of foliage where they may have landed. You might want to wear some gardening gloves, particularly if you have thorned plants or conifer trees that will make your skin itchy.

If you have neighbors who aren’t particularly interested in garden but also have a yard full of leaves, offer you neighborly services. Everyone’s a winner!

Step Two

Rake all the fallen leaves into a pile on your lawn and then, using a lawn mower, go over the leaves again again until they are in tiny shredded pieces. You can use the best zero turn mower for this to make sure the leaves are totally shredded. This mower is also great for cutting grass so you can do that at the same time if you wanted to. This process is vital for speeding up the decomposition of your leaves.

Step Three

Bag up the shredded leaves allowing just a little bit of airflow and moisture to get in. This will assist the decomposition process and will result in a lovely fresh bag of leaf mould. You can even add your fresh lawn trimmings too.

What Can You Use Leaf Mould For?

Leaf mould is ideal for giving your plants vital nutrients over the winter months. Simply spread a thin layer on top of the soil around the base of your plants and rake it in. you could also use leaf mould to keep your plants warm by piling it up around the roots and base. This is a more organic way of keeping your plants warm and comes with the added bonus of plenty of nitrogen for your plants to grow.

You could also use leaf mould as a layer in your own homemade compost. Simply fork it into the heap and leave it to do it’s thing.

If you’ve never made leaf mould before, it is really easy to store. All you need to do is leave the bags in a cold dark space, like a shed or garage, and ignore until you want to use them. As there are no chemicals involved at all and you know exactly where the leaves have come from, you can be confident that what you are spreading on your garden will do it good.