All across the country leaves are falling, changing color, and being admired for their beauty.
There is another side to the life of and usefulness of leaves.
Although leaves add agronomically significant amounts of nutrients, only a portion of the nutrients are available immediately after application for use by the crop. The increase in the soils total nutrient content will, however, contribute to the long term fertility of the soil as the nutrients are released over time.
Much of the nutrients in leaves are part of the organic structure of the plant tissue and require microbial decomposition to release them. This is where composting plays a vital role in leaf usage.
When using leaves in your compost bin run them through a shredder or run the lawn mower over the pile a few times to cut the leaves into a finer mass...this promotes faster break down in the compost mix.
I hope you are enjoying Autumn as much as I~
2 comments:
I, too, love the Fall, it is a beautiful time of the year. We have tons of leaves and enjoy the various colors. The lawn mover idea works great, that is what we do for our yard.
Thanks for your blog.
Candace
Hi Candace,
Thanks for the visit and the comments, so glad you enjoy the blog enough to follow us...we do appreciate you~
There is about 13 different nutrients that leaves pass on to the soil when allowed to decompose in a natural process.
I bet your lawn is lovely and healthy.
I visited your website...very interesting, I'll remember to pass it on to anyone whom has need of it.
Thanks
Bea
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