my neighbors definitly think I'm crazy now.

If weeding in my pajamas wasn't bad enough, this weekend, my neighbors will think I'm crazy now.

Look what I brought home in the back of my car:

These leaves are from my neighbor who has a huge oak tree. I offered to rake them if I could take them home. Since they just put them in the yard waste bin, they were happy to give them to me. I drug them out of the back of the car, and onto my future garden beds.

These beds are sod, with cardboard layered on top, covered with compost, grass clippings, dying plants from the vege garden, topped with leaves!

The great thing is I can plan the shape of the beds without any digging, hose laying, etc. Just move the leaves a bit here and there. Here is a view from above.

And after all that yesturday, I was out in the front yard tonight putting sheets on all my dahlia. It is predicted to freeze tonight. If it weren't dark, I'd have taken pictures of that. It looks like there are ghosts in my yard!

Nice haul!

DH spent most of yesterday mowing -- not to cut the grass, but just to pick up leaves. After the wind we had today you'd never know he was out there at all. It's a good thing they're good for something. :-)

I love it, jburesh! Right On!!!!!

I have done the same thing. I lived in an HOA that didn't allow planting of trees whose leaves fall. I compost. I found my trees and fallen leaves on the Central Corridor here in Phoenix. I raked and bagged those precious leaves and hauled them home to my compost pile... Delicious!

So glad to hear that someone else is mad about raking. I love it - we have huge trees - and a lot of them, and they are all deciduous. And I honestly look forward to it, not only for the mulch, but just the sound of the raking. Incredibly meditational. Husband just smiles - he is used to it now.

Share your madness. I brought yesterday a bag of leaves in my car as well. Going to run lawnmower on them to prepare to mulch my garlic beds some day this week.

LOL!! A true gardener!! I've been eyeing my neighbor's japanese maple leaves, just waiting for them to fall!!

laurie, I've read that sweeping is very therapeutic and soothing - I suspect raking falls in that same category. I like to do both (as long as there's nothing heavy or snagging me up with a rake!). There was an article about a guy who quit smoking and every time he had a bad craving he would go outside and sweep the porch, patio, whatever. He said it worked.

You are definatly over the edge. Now to really get your neighbors talking buy one of those leaf vacuums and go up and down the street vacuuming the rocks and sidewalks.

I'm afraid my neighbors wouldn't even blink - they're used to my eccentricities! (I love being old enough to be called eccentric instead of just crazy or weird!)

Those new beds look great. I have done just what you have for my new beds too. The lasagna layer look. Great way to use up compost, grass clippings, etc. for mulch instead of tossing it.

Can't wait to see those beds in the spring!

rofl that is to funny!!!!

i've heard of dgers who go around asking neighbors for their leaves to.

sofer,
I love the leaf blower idea! That way I could get tons of leaves with so much less effort. Start at the end of the block farthest from my house and blow every leaf towards my gardens!

yes but it would be better to start from the west or that big hill by your house will make you insane trying to blow up it. I never use a blower just a vacuum that mulches the material it sucks up. I have gotten a ton of leaf/pine needle for my compost pile just running my vaccum machine. Not as noisy as blower either. 4 cycle motor.

Many years back, I brought home a couple dozen bags of leaves. Most of them made their way into beds, but I ended up with several bags of leaves & no time to deal with them appropriately, as we had an early winter. I laid the closed bags of leaves on top of the soil in several of my raised beds, and left them there until the following spring. When I opened them up - the leaves were composted down - "leaf fluff", ready to use. I think that this is due to worms getting raked up with the leaves, and being the happy campers that they are, went to work.

I went and got 3 car loads tonight and there were still leaves in their yard. Boy am I tired! Forcast is for rain the rest of the week though, so I wanted to get them while they were dry. I'm sure it was funny watching me shove a tarp full of leaves into my poor subaru!

I'm going to raid the curbside placed bags in Medford this autumn.

They will be scattered a foot deep around my Madrones. We don't water them, and there's no natural mulch around them. Even Madrone should have some kind of leaf mulch left. Too many properties are stripped clean of natural mulching materials.

My DH wanders around the cleared parts of the property now and then, mulching up leaves with the lawnmower. Earlier this week I happened onto an area where the mulch had broken down somewhat -- I thought I was in potting soil heaven! A lot of the dirt I can raid to plant in is heavy to clay or heavy to sand. Now I'll have a good supply of leaf mulch to go with it. Now, where did I put that mixing bucket .... ?

right now, I think this is my favourite thread. I feel so at home amongst all this - ummmm, mulch. AND, I have a double load of farmyard manure, well rotted, being delivered tomorrow morning - that is 12 cubic meters! Now, be envious, very envious. Then get out the wheel barrows. I will be a few inches shorter by monday after all the barrowing, but happy happy happy!

Laurie,
I don't envy you. 12 cubic meters? I hope you have somebody to give you a good massage after. How big is your yard?
Are you growing veggies or only flowers?
I got couple cubic feet of grass cuttings mixed with leaves delivered by lawn maintenance company yesterday and (oh, rain) have to move them to backyard. Last fall i got such load, created big pile and in spring had great soil.

Well, brier, I probably won't get it all shifted this weekend - but I do like to aim high. And my work work is so sedantry that wheelbarrowing is a real relief!

I have just over an acre enclosed (we have 21 acres in total, but 10 of that is pasture and 10 woodland). The 'front' half is decorative, and I am working very hard to turn the lawn into nothing more than paths - so we work a lot of beds. The 'back' half is productive - a lot of vegtables, a small orchard, greenhouse, and nursery/cutting beds. I try to grow a fair portion of our plants since we have so much area to cover. I have just started work on recovering a wild area (about 1/4 acre) that has gone much too wild. This is probably where we will concentrate this winter.

There are times that it feels too big - but I go make the tea, try to break the tasks down into more manageable thinking, and then remind myself I do this for fun, and then it feels good again. AND, I do have two women who work with me on Fridays! Husband refers to them as the 'willing women workers', and I have to give them a lot of credit for being willing to work right through the rain - we were pouring water out of our wellies the other day and soaked to the skin (had to lend both of them dry trousers to drive home in!) They are really great, and I appreciate them enormously.

It is amazing where you can get loads of free stuff: lawn maintainence, and I get bark chipping from the tree guys we use. The manure comes free too. Does your grass pile steam? Ours gets so hot that we often find underneath it has turned to ash.

This message was edited Nov 2, 2006 4:30 AM

A co-worker of mine was complaining about having to rake up so many leaves, and said he takes them to the land fill, where he has to pay to get rid of them. I quickly requested that he save his next batch for me. I have very few trees on my acre of pasture, so no source of my own. I will be getting about 10 bags of leaves from him tomorrow. I am considering what to layer them with. I have access to horse manure from some neighbors, commercially prepared compost (either cedar grove or purdy prep).. or I could get a load of okara-soy fibers from a tofu plant. Never having done this before, I would appreciate input about proportions, how many inches of each material and how deep the pile needs to be to really smother the underlying grass.

Mauryhillfarm - wow, get all of it! I would keep the leaves separate rotting them down for leaf mould. The thing about leaf compost is that it has some particular properties: adds humus to the soil, is nutrient neutral, raises the acidity of the soil. so it should really be kept to either mix with your well rotted compost (so that you can adjust the ratio), or to spread on plants that want a more acidic, woodland condition, or areas that you want to want to improve the soil but don't want to feed.

If you are getting manure, check to see if it is well rotted. (You can tell by the smell. Well rotted manure smells like rich dirt and is crumbly, fresh smells like horse poo and is sticky). You also want to decide if it has hay or shavings in it (manure with a lot of hay/shavings is best layered with wetter materal, like grass clippings, weeds, and probably tofu fibre). If it is fresh, you need to compost it with other material (it is too acidic in its fresh condition) - I would layer everything together in about 3 inch layers - that is a very approximate measurement - I just can't be pfaffed to stop putting weeds on the pile to layer in some grass cuttings and then some other stuff. Just think in terms of 'well that's one days work, now I can top it off with....' .

As far as wiping out the grass underneath, if you are building a pile, that will stop the grass growing. When you remove the pile, the grass will eventually return.

Good finds - you are going to have some mighty fine compost!

maury, i believe i saw a great diagram somewhere that suggested cardboard or newspaper to form a barrier for the grass (see above pic) then 3-4" manure/compost, 2" green (grass clippings, or maybe your soy), then 3-4" leaves on top of it all. This is known as "lasagna gardening". No digging required and all will be broken down by the time the rains stop in spring.

Jburesh, after today you have to have a lot of faith to assume the rains will stop just because spring (or summer) comes along!

Well, they have to stop eventually!

I am coming to Seattle so the weather next week starting tuesday will be wonderful. I always have sunny weather in Seattle. Enjoy the sun on me.

Unfortunately my co-worker did no raking today (in the absolutely pouring rain, don't blame him) so I have no leaves yet . I do have a large load of horse manure, partially composted. My dh is somewhat worried about the soy stuff smelling bad if we choose to get it. I think if we layer it enough with other things it would be o.k. I have many corn stalks from this summer's garden, which might help aerate the stack. the cardboard is a good idea. We have really tough orchard grass that sends rhizomes out prolifically. I had to methodically dig it out of every square foot of garden bed I currently have. I'm hoping the smothering method will make eradication easier. I do hope next week will be a bit less rainy. Even our nice Northwest mist style rain would be fine with me. If you bring the sun, Soferdig, I will enjoy it.

Soferdig, how long are you going to be here? I'm supposed to visit my mom and we're hoping for dry weather. If you're promising sun, I'll be sure to make plans for the days you're in town! :-)

It takes a day or so after I arrive so I will plan on seeing warm weather and broken sun in the afternoon of wed thurs and friday. As always the weekends are rainy. Possibly monday and tuesday will be sunny as I drive back to Montana. How is that for a weather report.

A lot better than the one we're looking at on the TV! LOL

Well, once the rains (monsoons) stop, anyone with a wheelbarrow and pickup is most welcome to share in the free all-you-can-rake leaf buffet in my yard. I'll have my hands full pulling them all out of the pond and creek (and filter, gutters, storm drains...). Just think, by next week, all of these maple leaves should be on the ground...free for the taking!

wow, beautiful yard galega! I love the combination of plants, the sitting area, everything!

Thanks! It's tough with all of this rain to not be out in the yard working. Do you have flooding up in Renton? Today I was out very briefly digging trenches for all of the runoff. It's good to be inside now, but I have to drive up to Tacoma tonight - Yuck.

I bet I could fill up your Subaru with leaves, but they're pretty wet now!

yes, i have no doubt you could. That's a big tree. :)

No flooding yet. But wow what a lot of rain!

its 8pm and I just got off Snoqualmie pass and look out Seattle you are going to be buried in run off. It was raining an inch an hour. I was swept off the road driving only 30mph and there were rocks, mud dams,and bull dozers pushing debris off the road all the way down. At the area where the slide was last year the water was over 2' deep. I don't know if they closed it but they should have. How exciting. I'm glad I left Montana early cause it took me 10 hours to go 8. Winds in Spokane were over 50mph and it isn't even winter yet. Yah hoo!