October 14, 2025 • 21 mins
Fallen leaves in the garden will blanket the soil, slow weeds, and shelter a whole mini-wildlife community. Many native butterflies, moths, beetles, and even some queen bumble bees ride out winter tucked into leaf litter and hollow stems. When we keep some of that litter in place, we’re giving next spring’s pollinators a head start.
That's the idea behind the National Wildlife Federation "Leave the Leaves" campaign. . Each October they put out a campaign to raise awareness around the incredibly valuable habitat for wildlife and nutrients for plants that comes in the form of our yard waste.
But what if this season brought a heavy pest infestation to your garden and you don’t want to give those pests a place to shelter? That’s where a targeted cleanup comes in clutch. So, today on Just Grow Something we’re talking about how to leave the leaves strategically. I’ll give you pointers on how to keep the fallen leaf layer in your garden to benefit the bevy of butterflies, beetles, and bumblebees without giving sanctuary to the squash bugs and the scales. Let’s dig in!
Resources:
Sign up for my newsletter here: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/news
Leave the Leaves Month info: https://www.nwf.org/Native-Plant-Habitats/Join-the-Movement/Seasonal-Initiatives/Leave-the-Leaves-Month
Full transcript and show notes can be found here: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/leave-the-leaves-strategically-ep-271
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In one year, Americans dispose of over 10 million tons of yard
waste. That is 7% of our nation's solid
waste. That is according to the
National Wildlife Federation. And if you've heard the plea to
leave the leaves this month, that has also come from the NWF.
Each October they put out a campaign to raise awareness
(00:21):
around the incredibly valuable habitat for wildlife and
nutrients for plants that comes in the form of our yard waste.
Wildlife like butterflies, bumblebees, fireflies,
salamanders, they all depend on the leaf layer to get through
the winter and have an early start in the spring.
Those fallen leaves in the garden will also protect the
(00:42):
soil and slow down weed pressure, something we as
gardeners would be happy about. But every year at this time I
see gardeners ask the same very valid question.
What if I don't want the bugs? What if this season brought a
heavy pest infestation to your garden and you don't want to
give those pests a place to shelter?
Yes, it's true, some yard debriscan harbor those troublemakers.
(01:06):
Adults of several garden pests overwinter under plant debris
and leaf piles and reappear ready to eat and reproduce the
moment that the temperatures rise in the spring.
And there are other species who use this leaf litter as a layer
of protection for their eggs. What is a gardener to do?
That is where a targeted cleanupcomes in clutch.
(01:29):
So today on Just Grow Something,we're talking about how to leave
the leaves strategically. I'll give you pointers on how to
keep the fallen leaf layer in your garden to benefit the bevy
of butterflies, beetles and bumblebees without giving
sanctuary to the squash bugs andthe scales.
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
(01:49):
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
build confidence in your own garden space.
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
(02:10):
just grow something. This episode was inspired by
responses to my e-mail newsletter that went out last
Friday. I hadn't intended on making this
a full episode, I just wanted towrite about it in the
newsletter, but I got so many positive responses and thank
yous around the topic that I thought I would go ahead and
(02:33):
make it a full episode and go into some detail here on the
show. If you're not on my e-mail list,
click the link in the show notesto sign up or go to
justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/news.So fallen leaves in our garden
beds is going to help to blanketthe soil.
(02:54):
It's going to help slow down some weeds, and it's also going
to shelter a whole mini wildlifecommunity.
So a lot of native butterflies, moths, beetles, even some queen
bumblebees are going to ride outthe winter tucked into that leaf
litter and also in the hollow stems of like some of our garden
(03:14):
plants. When we keep some of this litter
in place, then all we're doing is we're helping those
beneficials, which in turn are going to help us the next
spring, right? So there are three things that
we can do to manage the fallen leaves in our yards.
Our options are to keep, move orremove.
(03:36):
So what what do we keep? We want to leave a sort of
light, breathable layer of leaves, especially in like our
ornamental beds, beneath our shrubs, around our trees.
And then we can sort of designate little pollinator
corners that we can leave the leaves in as well.
This is where the leaf litter isgoing to do the most ecological
(03:59):
good for like the beneficials with the very least amount of
risk to us in terms of our crops.
So this is especially important or beneficial around native
trees. A lot of native trees are host
plants for caterpillars and other insects that are going to
be looking for that leaf layer just to overwinter in.
On the opposite side of this, italso helps like the mammals and
(04:22):
the birds that enjoy the shelterof those trees but that like to
dig through that leaf layer to forage.
So yeah, they might be eating some of those caterpillars and
the other beneficials, but it's also benefiting the mammals and
the birds, right? You can also keep the leaves in
your actual garden beds if therehaven't been a ton of pest
(04:44):
issues. Leaves are really, really good
for just protecting our garden soils over the winter time from
losses to that topsoil due to like wind or rain events.
And it also insulates that soil for the beneficials that are in
there. We just don't want those leaves
to be up against any of our overwintering plants, just in
(05:05):
the same way that we don't want like, our mulch pushed up
against the bases of our plants during the gardening season
right now. When might we want to move the
leaves in our garden beds that were healthy this year?
We want to just move, like I said, the the leaves away from
the crowns of any overwintered or perennial crops.
(05:26):
We also want to move them out ofthe pathways in our garden
because this can actually becomesort of a hazard to us.
If you have walkways where leaves sort of pile in and then
they get real wet and then they get matted down and then they
get very slick. Yeah.
You slip on those leaves once, you're going to know what I'm
talking about. So we want them out of the
pathways too. And then we just want to move
(05:48):
those leaves either into beds that don't have as many leaves,
right, to act as a mulch, or we can move them a few feet away
into one of those areas under a tree or a hedge.
You're still preserving the habitat.
You're just relocating it out ofthe way of your perennial crops
that are in those beds in landscaping.
(06:09):
When you move these leaves to another designated area, they
call that a soft landing. So we want these leaves to act
as like a habitat patch. This could even be a corner
somewhere too. Now, if you had significant pest
pressure or very obvious diseases, plant diseases that
(06:30):
might persist in debris that is leftover in the winter, this is
when it's time to remove. We want to do a more thorough
sort of sanitation procedure here.
So the first thing is just to strip those shelters out of the
way. We want to remove any spent
plants that we have in the gardens.
We want to pull out any dense leaf mats that are in those
(06:51):
beds. If you're a particular pest
overwinters under debris, this is the time to deprive them of
that shelter just when they're getting ready to sort of settle
in. We don't want to wait to do this
until like after our first freeze or you know, when we
think they might already be downin there.
We want to kind of move it now. We don't want them to take hold.
(07:13):
We want them to sort of move on right at the same time that
we're doing this. We can rough up that bare soil.
So you can do a really shallow tilling or you can take a broad
fork and really vigorously sort of break up that soil or even
take one of those hard timed Rakes and kind of scrape it back
and forth across the soil. What we're doing here is we are
(07:35):
exposing any of those adults that are hiding.
We're also turning that soil up to expose any buried larvae or
eggs to the elements. And we're also exposing them to
predators. Now, we only have to do this
where it makes sense if you've had a really bad infestation and
that infestation, that insect tends to either overwinter as an
(07:56):
adult or they tend to have larvae that buries into that top
few inches of the soil or they lay their eggs down in there.
This is where you want to do this.
There is no reason to have to dothis in every single bed.
If you have not seen these, you know, predators coming in there,
these issues, OK, I'm a firm, you know, believer of not
(08:17):
disturbing that soil as infer ordisturbing it as infrequently as
possible because every time we do that, we're also sort of
disturbing the microbiota that are in that soil.
And we'd like to keep that as intact as possible.
So only do this sort of turnoverif you know that you've had
these pest issues. And then once you've sort of
cleaned it up, you've taken all the leaves off, you've pulled
(08:39):
all the debris out, you've turned the soil over a little
bit. Leave that soil bare for a few
days, maybe up to a week, and allow the birds and the other
predators, you know, the, the little mammals that want to come
in and forage to come in and getrid of those pests for you.
They can go in and they can pullthe adults out.
They can eat the larvae. They're disturbing the eggs.
(09:00):
Once you've done that, left it bare for a little while, then we
can go back through and add a thin layer of either fresh straw
or clean leaves. If you have other areas of your
yard that you know didn't have these infestations or they seem
to be clean, then go ahead and bring those leaves in and you
can put those on top as a mulch.We want to mulch in some way.
(09:22):
We want a fluffy mulch to get usthrough the winter time.
We don't ever want to just leavethe soil exposed like that.
So if you're pulling the diseaseleaves off or you're pulling the
ones that were infested off and you're turning all this over,
then add something back to it that is clean to act as a mulch
over the winter time. And then, you know, instead of
(09:44):
getting rid of all of those leaves, especially the ones that
you're pulling out of from around, like the the good, you
know, uninfested beds, we want to make that soft landing patch
somewhere. We don't want to eliminate it,
you know, all this habitat entirely.
We still want the pollinators toget that winter cover.
We just don't want it inside those beds where we potentially
(10:05):
have those pests being a problem.
And then just make sure that youare planning a rotation for the
following year. So if you had a bed or two that
were really, you know, attractedby the the squash bugs, the
squash bugs are attracted to those plants and you want to
make sure that you're moving them someplace else next year or
maybe even not growing those plants again just to kind of
break that that cycle of of the pests coming in.
(10:30):
OK, now what do we do with the stuff that we remove that we
can't reuse if we can't use these ones that were, you know,
the the leaves that we're pulling off of these beds that
were super infested with something.
We obviously don't want to just move them someplace else in our
yard if we think that there are,you know, adult insects
overwintering in there. So if we're moving them out of
(10:51):
our beds and we don't have spacefor them in other areas, or if
we had a severe pest problem andwe need to dispose of these
leaves somehow, what do we do? That's next.
So one of the options for your extra leaves is to compost them.
And I mean like hot compost. OK.
(11:13):
So if you're compost at home, you are going to want to aim, in
this instance for those compost piles to remain between 131 and
170°F for three consecutive days.
We want to make sure that we areturning that pile so that all of
the material is hitting the right temperature, that we're
adding moisture when we need to in order to keep that compost
(11:36):
really, really hot. And that we're using a soil
thermometer or a compost thermometer to track that soil
temperature and make sure we're checking at the same time every
day for three days in a row, making sure that we're hitting
those temperatures. That temperature range is the
range that is used to knock downmost of your plant pathogens
and, you know, any of your weed seeds and of course any of the
(12:00):
insects in there that we don't want, right?
The problem is that our home compost piles don't always get
that hot and they don't always stay that hot.
So we have to really make sure that if the goal is a hot
compost that we are monitoring that pile.
We are turning it when we need to.
We're making sure we have the right ratio of, you know, Browns
(12:22):
to greens and we're adding our water, we're getting that oxygen
in there by turning it. Now, I know for a lot of us,
composting is a very passive activity.
We don't want to do that with these leaves.
So if you are a passive composter and you can't maintain
these temperatures or if you hada lot of pathogens or a very,
very heavy pest infestation and you really don't think you can
(12:43):
take care of it on your own, then skip the compost altogether
and use your municipal green waste pickup or drop off
facilities, right? They will commercially compost
your yard debris. They'll take care of the issue
for you. And in a lot of places, you can
actually actually go back. If you're a resident and you're
dropping off to one of these facilities, you get to go back
and pick up a bag of finished compost in exchange for what you
(13:07):
dropped off in the spring. So find some way to dispose of
that material that does not involve your regular garbage.
OK, Whatever you do, please do not dispose of yard waste into
your regular trash collection. The 3rd annual Leave the Leaves
(13:28):
Month survey found that an overwhelming majority of the
people who responded to this survey, like 72% of them,
dispose of at least one bag of leaves in the trash.
And 12% of those respondents arethrowing away more than 10 bags
(13:49):
of leaves per season, not composting them, not sending
them to the municipal waste, literally throwing them in the
trash. That is a tremendously high
number, especially when we thinkabout how damaging this is to
the environment, not just in terms of wasted organic matter,
(14:10):
but also in terms of methane gasproduction.
For organic material to decompose quickly, it needs
access to oxygen. Decomposition at its functional
best is an aerobic process, meaning with oxygen.
Without that oxygen, decomposition can take decades
(14:30):
for those same organic materialsto breakdown.
Landfills typically have very little oxygen flow.
If we have organic materials like yard waste tied up in
plastic bags and tossed into a landfill, where it is then
surrounded by mounds of more plastic bags and then covered by
layers of inorganic waste, and then we bury it all, there is
(14:55):
very little oxygen. In that scenario.
That yard waste in landfills doesn't stand a chance at
breaking down quickly because itdoesn't have the oxygen it
needs. It does eventually decompose,
but it takes much longer, and that type of decomposition is
called anaerobic, meaning without oxygen, anaerobic
(15:16):
decomposition produces methane gas.
And since it takes so long for that decomposition to happen,
the organic waste in landfills just keeps on producing that
methane for decades. Methane is a powerful greenhouse
gas that traps significantly more heat than carbon dioxide
(15:36):
over a shorter period of time and contributes to ground level
ozone. We don't want to contribute more
methane to an already growing problem for our environment.
So if you can't get your composthot enough to kill off pathogens
or you had a very, very heavy pest infestation and you are
(15:57):
concerned about putting those leaves in a cold compost pile
where the insects might thrive in the spring, you can try
making leaf mold inside a black plastic bag.
I know we just talked about how bad it is to put, you know,
organic matter into a plastic bag, but hear me out with this
Leaf mold is compost, but in nature it is produced by the
(16:21):
decomposition of shaded leaves. So leaves that have fallen and
they stay under the, the shade and they're broken down
primarily by fungi in a much slower, cooler manner as opposed
to the bacterial degradation of leaves that were used to like in
a hot compost pile. You know, we can duplicate this
(16:42):
basically by just collecting theleaves and then we're shoving
them into a thick contractor grade, preferably plastic, a
black plastic bag. And then we wet them down just a
little bit and close up that bagsecurely.
Now we're just going to poke a couple of holes in the side for
some air and then toss it in a corner somewhere.
Just put it out of the direct sun somewhere in a corner behind
(17:05):
a building, behind your shed, next to the, the, the garden,
whatever, and just leave it there.
Leave it there, no pun intended.So what we're doing here is it's
it's decomposing, but it's decomposing inside that bag.
And this could take as long as 6, as little as six months or as
long as two years. But at the end you are going to
(17:27):
have beautiful dark brown, earthy smelling product that can
be used as a mulch. It can be a soil amendment or
you can use it as a base for like a homemade potting mix in
place of a peat Moss. Now you can make leaf mold
without the black plastic bag. So if you have an excess of
(17:47):
leaves that haven't been infested with any kind of
insects or it does hasn't held any, you know, pathogens from
diseases or anything like that, and, and you have a bunch of
extra, but maybe you don't have a hot compost pile or you don't
have a compost pile at all. You can still do this in an open
pile. You can do it in a bin that is
(18:08):
open and it will compost down beautifully.
In fact, it'll compost down a little bit more quickly than it
does inside the plastic bag. But if you are concerned about,
you know, having insect pests that might come out again the
next season and you don't want to have this in an open bin,
then that plastic bag containment is going to reduce
the possibility that you'll end up reinvesting your garden with
(18:29):
any pests that managed to hide in that original leaf litter.
Just whatever you do, please don't send your leaves to the
landfill. So how much leaf cover do we
want to leave out there in the garden?
Like how much is too much? We want to aim for, you know, a
thin quilt, not a really heavy weighted blanket.
(18:52):
We want it loose and, and, and fluffy, right?
So we're trying to mimic the depth of the naturally occurring
leaf layer to provide the optimum benefit for wildlife
without making it too deep. This layer is naturally going to
compress down and decompose overtime.
So around 3 to 5 inches is idealas a loose layer, and you still
(19:18):
should be able to see the soil through in some spots.
OK, we do want this loose. If the the leaves mat down into
a soggy mess, then they can smother the crowns of any plants
that we have out there. If we have perennial plants,
it's also going to harbor slugs and there's not going to be much
in terms of air flow. You know, So we're, we're
(19:38):
especially concerned about this in areas where it doesn't get
super cold in the winter. You can have slugs and things
that survive down under there. So just make sure you're kind of
fluffing it up with a rake. And sometimes you can even just
do this and mix it with a coarser mulch, like a straw
mulch just to kind of keep it nice and airy.
So when should you remove? This leaf layer in the spring,
(20:03):
we obviously want to start cleaning up some of the debris
around our trees and such or in the garden beds before we start
planting, right? Well, maybe in the spring we
should wait as long as we can toclear out the leaf litter from
around our trees and our shrubs and in our ornamental gardens.
Ideally, we want to time this right around the time that,
(20:25):
like, people would have to startmowing their lawns regularly,
because by that time, the overwintering bees and the other
beneficials should have already emerged.
Now, if the leaves are in your garden beds, you may not need to
remove them. You know, if they've broken down
a bit over the winter time, you can simply just pull back the
leaves to plant into the soil beneath and then just add a
(20:45):
fresh layer of mulch on top. If it hasn't broken down very
much, or if you feel like you need to like add some nutrients
in the spring, there is no harm in pulling it completely off the
bed, doing the work that you need to do, and then putting it
back in place as a mulch. Leaf litter can not only be a
soil amendment amendment, but itis free mulch that can do double
(21:08):
duty. It can protect our pollinators
through the winter time and thenit can protect our soil in the
spring. Leave the leaves is a great
tool, but only where it makes sense for our gardens.
So use it where it helps the most.
Under the trees, in ornamentals,along your hedges, and then as a
mulch over your garden beds in and around and away from your
(21:29):
perennials. And just modify it where you
need to. That way we keep both the
pollinators and the gardener happy out there.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
In one year, Americans dispose of over 10 million tons of yard
waste. That is 7% of our nation's solid
waste. That is according to the
National Wildlife Federation. And if you've heard the plea to
leave the leaves this month, that has also come from the NWF.
Each October they put out a campaign to raise awareness
(00:21):
around the incredibly valuable habitat for wildlife and
nutrients for plants that comes in the form of our yard waste.
Wildlife like butterflies, bumblebees, fireflies,
salamanders, they all depend on the leaf layer to get through
the winter and have an early start in the spring.
Those fallen leaves in the garden will also protect the
(00:42):
soil and slow down weed pressure, something we as
gardeners would be happy about. But every year at this time I
see gardeners ask the same very valid question.
What if I don't want the bugs? What if this season brought a
heavy pest infestation to your garden and you don't want to
give those pests a place to shelter?
Yes, it's true, some yard debriscan harbor those troublemakers.
(01:06):
Adults of several garden pests overwinter under plant debris
and leaf piles and reappear ready to eat and reproduce the
moment that the temperatures rise in the spring.
And there are other species who use this leaf litter as a layer
of protection for their eggs. What is a gardener to do?
That is where a targeted cleanupcomes in clutch.
(01:29):
So today on Just Grow Something,we're talking about how to leave
the leaves strategically. I'll give you pointers on how to
keep the fallen leaf layer in your garden to benefit the bevy
of butterflies, beetles and bumblebees without giving
sanctuary to the squash bugs andthe scales.
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
(01:49):
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
build confidence in your own garden space.
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
(02:10):
just grow something. This episode was inspired by
responses to my e-mail newsletter that went out last
Friday. I hadn't intended on making this
a full episode, I just wanted towrite about it in the
newsletter, but I got so many positive responses and thank
yous around the topic that I thought I would go ahead and
(02:33):
make it a full episode and go into some detail here on the
show. If you're not on my e-mail list,
click the link in the show notesto sign up or go to
justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/news.So fallen leaves in our garden
beds is going to help to blanketthe soil.
(02:54):
It's going to help slow down some weeds, and it's also going
to shelter a whole mini wildlifecommunity.
So a lot of native butterflies, moths, beetles, even some queen
bumblebees are going to ride outthe winter tucked into that leaf
litter and also in the hollow stems of like some of our garden
(03:14):
plants. When we keep some of this litter
in place, then all we're doing is we're helping those
beneficials, which in turn are going to help us the next
spring, right? So there are three things that
we can do to manage the fallen leaves in our yards.
Our options are to keep, move orremove.
(03:36):
So what what do we keep? We want to leave a sort of
light, breathable layer of leaves, especially in like our
ornamental beds, beneath our shrubs, around our trees.
And then we can sort of designate little pollinator
corners that we can leave the leaves in as well.
This is where the leaf litter isgoing to do the most ecological
(03:59):
good for like the beneficials with the very least amount of
risk to us in terms of our crops.
So this is especially important or beneficial around native
trees. A lot of native trees are host
plants for caterpillars and other insects that are going to
be looking for that leaf layer just to overwinter in.
On the opposite side of this, italso helps like the mammals and
(04:22):
the birds that enjoy the shelterof those trees but that like to
dig through that leaf layer to forage.
So yeah, they might be eating some of those caterpillars and
the other beneficials, but it's also benefiting the mammals and
the birds, right? You can also keep the leaves in
your actual garden beds if therehaven't been a ton of pest
(04:44):
issues. Leaves are really, really good
for just protecting our garden soils over the winter time from
losses to that topsoil due to like wind or rain events.
And it also insulates that soil for the beneficials that are in
there. We just don't want those leaves
to be up against any of our overwintering plants, just in
(05:05):
the same way that we don't want like, our mulch pushed up
against the bases of our plants during the gardening season
right now. When might we want to move the
leaves in our garden beds that were healthy this year?
We want to just move, like I said, the the leaves away from
the crowns of any overwintered or perennial crops.
(05:26):
We also want to move them out ofthe pathways in our garden
because this can actually becomesort of a hazard to us.
If you have walkways where leaves sort of pile in and then
they get real wet and then they get matted down and then they
get very slick. Yeah.
You slip on those leaves once, you're going to know what I'm
talking about. So we want them out of the
pathways too. And then we just want to move
(05:48):
those leaves either into beds that don't have as many leaves,
right, to act as a mulch, or we can move them a few feet away
into one of those areas under a tree or a hedge.
You're still preserving the habitat.
You're just relocating it out ofthe way of your perennial crops
that are in those beds in landscaping.
(06:09):
When you move these leaves to another designated area, they
call that a soft landing. So we want these leaves to act
as like a habitat patch. This could even be a corner
somewhere too. Now, if you had significant pest
pressure or very obvious diseases, plant diseases that
(06:30):
might persist in debris that is leftover in the winter, this is
when it's time to remove. We want to do a more thorough
sort of sanitation procedure here.
So the first thing is just to strip those shelters out of the
way. We want to remove any spent
plants that we have in the gardens.
We want to pull out any dense leaf mats that are in those
(06:51):
beds. If you're a particular pest
overwinters under debris, this is the time to deprive them of
that shelter just when they're getting ready to sort of settle
in. We don't want to wait to do this
until like after our first freeze or you know, when we
think they might already be downin there.
We want to kind of move it now. We don't want them to take hold.
(07:13):
We want them to sort of move on right at the same time that
we're doing this. We can rough up that bare soil.
So you can do a really shallow tilling or you can take a broad
fork and really vigorously sort of break up that soil or even
take one of those hard timed Rakes and kind of scrape it back
and forth across the soil. What we're doing here is we are
(07:35):
exposing any of those adults that are hiding.
We're also turning that soil up to expose any buried larvae or
eggs to the elements. And we're also exposing them to
predators. Now, we only have to do this
where it makes sense if you've had a really bad infestation and
that infestation, that insect tends to either overwinter as an
(07:56):
adult or they tend to have larvae that buries into that top
few inches of the soil or they lay their eggs down in there.
This is where you want to do this.
There is no reason to have to dothis in every single bed.
If you have not seen these, you know, predators coming in there,
these issues, OK, I'm a firm, you know, believer of not
(08:17):
disturbing that soil as infer ordisturbing it as infrequently as
possible because every time we do that, we're also sort of
disturbing the microbiota that are in that soil.
And we'd like to keep that as intact as possible.
So only do this sort of turnoverif you know that you've had
these pest issues. And then once you've sort of
cleaned it up, you've taken all the leaves off, you've pulled
(08:39):
all the debris out, you've turned the soil over a little
bit. Leave that soil bare for a few
days, maybe up to a week, and allow the birds and the other
predators, you know, the, the little mammals that want to come
in and forage to come in and getrid of those pests for you.
They can go in and they can pullthe adults out.
They can eat the larvae. They're disturbing the eggs.
(09:00):
Once you've done that, left it bare for a little while, then we
can go back through and add a thin layer of either fresh straw
or clean leaves. If you have other areas of your
yard that you know didn't have these infestations or they seem
to be clean, then go ahead and bring those leaves in and you
can put those on top as a mulch.We want to mulch in some way.
(09:22):
We want a fluffy mulch to get usthrough the winter time.
We don't ever want to just leavethe soil exposed like that.
So if you're pulling the diseaseleaves off or you're pulling the
ones that were infested off and you're turning all this over,
then add something back to it that is clean to act as a mulch
over the winter time. And then, you know, instead of
(09:44):
getting rid of all of those leaves, especially the ones that
you're pulling out of from around, like the the good, you
know, uninfested beds, we want to make that soft landing patch
somewhere. We don't want to eliminate it,
you know, all this habitat entirely.
We still want the pollinators toget that winter cover.
We just don't want it inside those beds where we potentially
(10:05):
have those pests being a problem.
And then just make sure that youare planning a rotation for the
following year. So if you had a bed or two that
were really, you know, attractedby the the squash bugs, the
squash bugs are attracted to those plants and you want to
make sure that you're moving them someplace else next year or
maybe even not growing those plants again just to kind of
break that that cycle of of the pests coming in.
(10:30):
OK, now what do we do with the stuff that we remove that we
can't reuse if we can't use these ones that were, you know,
the the leaves that we're pulling off of these beds that
were super infested with something.
We obviously don't want to just move them someplace else in our
yard if we think that there are,you know, adult insects
overwintering in there. So if we're moving them out of
(10:51):
our beds and we don't have spacefor them in other areas, or if
we had a severe pest problem andwe need to dispose of these
leaves somehow, what do we do? That's next.
So one of the options for your extra leaves is to compost them.
And I mean like hot compost. OK.
(11:13):
So if you're compost at home, you are going to want to aim, in
this instance for those compost piles to remain between 131 and
170°F for three consecutive days.
We want to make sure that we areturning that pile so that all of
the material is hitting the right temperature, that we're
adding moisture when we need to in order to keep that compost
(11:36):
really, really hot. And that we're using a soil
thermometer or a compost thermometer to track that soil
temperature and make sure we're checking at the same time every
day for three days in a row, making sure that we're hitting
those temperatures. That temperature range is the
range that is used to knock downmost of your plant pathogens
and, you know, any of your weed seeds and of course any of the
(12:00):
insects in there that we don't want, right?
The problem is that our home compost piles don't always get
that hot and they don't always stay that hot.
So we have to really make sure that if the goal is a hot
compost that we are monitoring that pile.
We are turning it when we need to.
We're making sure we have the right ratio of, you know, Browns
(12:22):
to greens and we're adding our water, we're getting that oxygen
in there by turning it. Now, I know for a lot of us,
composting is a very passive activity.
We don't want to do that with these leaves.
So if you are a passive composter and you can't maintain
these temperatures or if you hada lot of pathogens or a very,
very heavy pest infestation and you really don't think you can
(12:43):
take care of it on your own, then skip the compost altogether
and use your municipal green waste pickup or drop off
facilities, right? They will commercially compost
your yard debris. They'll take care of the issue
for you. And in a lot of places, you can
actually actually go back. If you're a resident and you're
dropping off to one of these facilities, you get to go back
and pick up a bag of finished compost in exchange for what you
(13:07):
dropped off in the spring. So find some way to dispose of
that material that does not involve your regular garbage.
OK, Whatever you do, please do not dispose of yard waste into
your regular trash collection. The 3rd annual Leave the Leaves
(13:28):
Month survey found that an overwhelming majority of the
people who responded to this survey, like 72% of them,
dispose of at least one bag of leaves in the trash.
And 12% of those respondents arethrowing away more than 10 bags
(13:49):
of leaves per season, not composting them, not sending
them to the municipal waste, literally throwing them in the
trash. That is a tremendously high
number, especially when we thinkabout how damaging this is to
the environment, not just in terms of wasted organic matter,
(14:10):
but also in terms of methane gasproduction.
For organic material to decompose quickly, it needs
access to oxygen. Decomposition at its functional
best is an aerobic process, meaning with oxygen.
Without that oxygen, decomposition can take decades
(14:30):
for those same organic materialsto breakdown.
Landfills typically have very little oxygen flow.
If we have organic materials like yard waste tied up in
plastic bags and tossed into a landfill, where it is then
surrounded by mounds of more plastic bags and then covered by
layers of inorganic waste, and then we bury it all, there is
(14:55):
very little oxygen. In that scenario.
That yard waste in landfills doesn't stand a chance at
breaking down quickly because itdoesn't have the oxygen it
needs. It does eventually decompose,
but it takes much longer, and that type of decomposition is
called anaerobic, meaning without oxygen, anaerobic
(15:16):
decomposition produces methane gas.
And since it takes so long for that decomposition to happen,
the organic waste in landfills just keeps on producing that
methane for decades. Methane is a powerful greenhouse
gas that traps significantly more heat than carbon dioxide
(15:36):
over a shorter period of time and contributes to ground level
ozone. We don't want to contribute more
methane to an already growing problem for our environment.
So if you can't get your composthot enough to kill off pathogens
or you had a very, very heavy pest infestation and you are
(15:57):
concerned about putting those leaves in a cold compost pile
where the insects might thrive in the spring, you can try
making leaf mold inside a black plastic bag.
I know we just talked about how bad it is to put, you know,
organic matter into a plastic bag, but hear me out with this
Leaf mold is compost, but in nature it is produced by the
(16:21):
decomposition of shaded leaves. So leaves that have fallen and
they stay under the, the shade and they're broken down
primarily by fungi in a much slower, cooler manner as opposed
to the bacterial degradation of leaves that were used to like in
a hot compost pile. You know, we can duplicate this
(16:42):
basically by just collecting theleaves and then we're shoving
them into a thick contractor grade, preferably plastic, a
black plastic bag. And then we wet them down just a
little bit and close up that bagsecurely.
Now we're just going to poke a couple of holes in the side for
some air and then toss it in a corner somewhere.
Just put it out of the direct sun somewhere in a corner behind
(17:05):
a building, behind your shed, next to the, the, the garden,
whatever, and just leave it there.
Leave it there, no pun intended.So what we're doing here is it's
it's decomposing, but it's decomposing inside that bag.
And this could take as long as 6, as little as six months or as
long as two years. But at the end you are going to
(17:27):
have beautiful dark brown, earthy smelling product that can
be used as a mulch. It can be a soil amendment or
you can use it as a base for like a homemade potting mix in
place of a peat Moss. Now you can make leaf mold
without the black plastic bag. So if you have an excess of
(17:47):
leaves that haven't been infested with any kind of
insects or it does hasn't held any, you know, pathogens from
diseases or anything like that, and, and you have a bunch of
extra, but maybe you don't have a hot compost pile or you don't
have a compost pile at all. You can still do this in an open
pile. You can do it in a bin that is
(18:08):
open and it will compost down beautifully.
In fact, it'll compost down a little bit more quickly than it
does inside the plastic bag. But if you are concerned about,
you know, having insect pests that might come out again the
next season and you don't want to have this in an open bin,
then that plastic bag containment is going to reduce
the possibility that you'll end up reinvesting your garden with
(18:29):
any pests that managed to hide in that original leaf litter.
Just whatever you do, please don't send your leaves to the
landfill. So how much leaf cover do we
want to leave out there in the garden?
Like how much is too much? We want to aim for, you know, a
thin quilt, not a really heavy weighted blanket.
(18:52):
We want it loose and, and, and fluffy, right?
So we're trying to mimic the depth of the naturally occurring
leaf layer to provide the optimum benefit for wildlife
without making it too deep. This layer is naturally going to
compress down and decompose overtime.
So around 3 to 5 inches is idealas a loose layer, and you still
(19:18):
should be able to see the soil through in some spots.
OK, we do want this loose. If the the leaves mat down into
a soggy mess, then they can smother the crowns of any plants
that we have out there. If we have perennial plants,
it's also going to harbor slugs and there's not going to be much
in terms of air flow. You know, So we're, we're
(19:38):
especially concerned about this in areas where it doesn't get
super cold in the winter. You can have slugs and things
that survive down under there. So just make sure you're kind of
fluffing it up with a rake. And sometimes you can even just
do this and mix it with a coarser mulch, like a straw
mulch just to kind of keep it nice and airy.
So when should you remove? This leaf layer in the spring,
(20:03):
we obviously want to start cleaning up some of the debris
around our trees and such or in the garden beds before we start
planting, right? Well, maybe in the spring we
should wait as long as we can toclear out the leaf litter from
around our trees and our shrubs and in our ornamental gardens.
Ideally, we want to time this right around the time that,
(20:25):
like, people would have to startmowing their lawns regularly,
because by that time, the overwintering bees and the other
beneficials should have already emerged.
Now, if the leaves are in your garden beds, you may not need to
remove them. You know, if they've broken down
a bit over the winter time, you can simply just pull back the
leaves to plant into the soil beneath and then just add a
(20:45):
fresh layer of mulch on top. If it hasn't broken down very
much, or if you feel like you need to like add some nutrients
in the spring, there is no harm in pulling it completely off the
bed, doing the work that you need to do, and then putting it
back in place as a mulch. Leaf litter can not only be a
soil amendment amendment, but itis free mulch that can do double
(21:08):
duty. It can protect our pollinators
through the winter time and thenit can protect our soil in the
spring. Leave the leaves is a great
tool, but only where it makes sense for our gardens.
So use it where it helps the most.
Under the trees, in ornamentals,along your hedges, and then as a
mulch over your garden beds in and around and away from your
(21:29):
perennials. And just modify it where you
need to. That way we keep both the
pollinators and the gardener happy out there.
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.
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