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<\/a><\/p>\n…what the heck would I find appealing about bags of leaves?<\/p>\n
Blame my enthusiasm for bagged leaves on this:<\/p>\n
Yep.\u00a0 Last year I thought I saw some late blight on my tomatoes.\u00a0 But I’m not really sure.\u00a0 Because it could have been wilt.\u00a0 Or leaf spot.\u00a0 Or even early blight.\u00a0 Or nutrient leaching due to an extremely rainy summer.\u00a0 Since tomatoes can’t talk and every gardener has their own opinion on what these diseases look like, it was hard to say.<\/p>\n Regardless, one of my goals this year was to add a deep layer of leaves to the garden beds to get some distance from the possibly infected soil.\u00a0 By spring the leaves should break down and I planned to top them off with barn compost and only lightly mix it all together with the shovel—-without disturbing the old base soil.\u00a0 Hopefully the fungus would stay deep in the ground and even if it didn’t, the leaf mulch should stop it from splashing onto plant leaves and spreading.\u00a0 And the fresh compost might be filled with enough good microbes to combat anything that threatened to rise up.<\/p>\n I also planned to cover the beds with clear plastic for a few weeks in March to heat up the soil and kill off any remaining fungus.\u00a0 But since March is my birthday month, I don’t have any real expectations of that happening.\u00a0 Because I should be sitting on a beach with a drink in my hand and a glossy new pedicure on my toes at that time.\u00a0 Unless someone wants to cover my garden beds with clear plastic for me.\u00a0 As a birthday present.\u00a0 While I’m off celebrating at the beach.\u00a0 Hint, hint, wonder if I can make this repost to The Other Half’s email in March, hint.<\/p>\n But even if the plastic doesn’t happen, I didn’t have any excuse not to start building up the beds with leaf mulch now.\u00a0 And I certainly had plenty of leaves.<\/p>\n However, in order to cut down on the hauling of leaves, I prefer to rake and pile leaves as close to where they fell as possible.\u00a0 Leaves in the front yard get raked as mulch around whatever bushes, perennials, or flowers I am feeding to the deer that year.<\/p>\n When the bushes have had all the leaves they can handle I start piling them around the bases of the trees.\u00a0 Admittedly, in my desire to avoid hauling leaves out of the front yard, this baby magnolia probably got more than was necessary.<\/p>\n In the back yard, I rake the leaves over the rock wall and into the natural areas.\u00a0\u00a0 By “natural areas” I mean the areas we don’t have the money, time, or energy to landscape.<\/p>\n Whatever is left after that, gets raked into the dog pen.<\/p>\n For the dogs to play in and dig in and snuggle in.\u00a0 If they ever got locked in their kennel.\u00a0 Which they don’t.<\/p>\n Leaves out of the ditches are raked right up into the wildflower or daylilies bed.<\/p>\n There are still plenty of leaves around here.\u00a0 Unfortunately, they have to be raked and hauled from the top of the driveway, where we have grassy areas, all the way down to the garden.<\/p>\n What?\u00a0 You don’t see the garden.\u00a0 Look for the white row covers.\u00a0 See it now?<\/p>\n Yeah.\u00a0 Looks like fun, doesn’t it?\u00a0 Which is why my heart leaped when I saw those pre-raked, pre-bagged leaves just sitting on the curb.\u00a0 And why I decided the next day was a good day to drive the kids to school in town.\u00a0 In the truck.\u00a0 As soon as we got to town, I dropped off the boys and then zoomed back to that house.\u00a0 Where the leaves were still there!!!<\/p>\n And then, while Pretty and Big huddled in the front seat, pretending they weren’t with me and had no idea who the crazy woman stealing leaves was, I piled all those bags into the truck bed.\u00a0 Then we proceeded to drive to their school to drop them off.\u00a0 Big was in charge of making sure that the leaves didn’t start flying out of the bags and he told me to slow down every time they did.\u00a0 Which meant we never got above about 35 mph.\u00a0 Pretty was in charge of keeping track of the cars stuck behind us.\u00a0 At first she reported 2 cars.\u00a0 Then 3.\u00a0 Then with a sigh, she said,<\/p>\n “Yeah, I don’t really know.\u00a0 We’re like a train.”<\/p>\n Look, people, I know you’ve got to get to work.\u00a0 But the speed limit in town is<\/em><\/strong> 35 mph.\u00a0 And it’s only 25 mph in the school zones.\u00a0 I’m not holding you up, I’m just keeping you from getting a speeding ticket.\u00a0 Yeah, you’re welcome.<\/p>\n And on the country roads the speed limit is always the speed of the farmer’s tractor or pick up truck in front of you.\u00a0 Everybody knows that.\u00a0 All the cussing and finger-waving in the world isn’t going to change that.<\/p>\n When I got home I was able to drive right up to the garden beds to unload the bags.<\/p>\n They were enough to completely fill 2 of the raised beds, 12-18″ high.\u00a0 Score!<\/p>\n Then, because the leaves came in those lovely paper biodegradable lawn bags, I was able to use the bags to cover the beds.\u00a0 To keep the leaves from blowing out.\u00a0 Double score! (Or field goal.\u00a0 Or free throw.\u00a0 Or, um,… check mate?)<\/p>\n Plus, by the time I finished, the fog and clouds were rolling in.\u00a0 We ended up with a steady rain throughout the night.\u00a0 And temperatures warming up to the 70’s over the next couple of days.\u00a0 Just perfect to dampen the new leaf piles and then start the decomposition process.\u00a0 Triple word score!!<\/p>\n Now I just need someone to move this last pile of leaves down to the garden to freshen up the beds for the squash and eggplants.<\/p>\n Someone?<\/p>\n "I'm right in the middle of a good part!"<\/p><\/div>\n Anyone?<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>