Falling Leaves

There are bags of leaves all along the street waiting for city pickup. The oak trees are still covered with green leaves. The other trees are still covered with yellow, brown and red leaves. How can so many have fallen? When the grass was cut last week about half of the material from the bagger was leaves. That went into the compost; but I don’t really care a lot for composting leaves.

They do make great mulch. They hold the moisture and the warmth in the ground. They prevent muddy shoes when walking through the garden. They look good. Earthworms love them. The down side is that they remind one that soon there will be no grass clippings. This is the major ingredient for my compost bin. Green stuff makes nitrogen. Leaves make carbon. Carbon is a necessary building block for healthy plants; but most of them make this for themselves. The leaves do provide a lot of organic matter. They can just be tilled into the garden in the spring before planting.

The leaves in the garden come from the bags on the side of the road. The leaves in the yard get blown around trees and into beds for mulch. I am too lazy to bag them or drag them to the garden.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/