raking leaves - the importance of leaf letter and hand rakes

My giant maple tree is rapidly dropping its leaves this week - as are all of the other trees in my neighborhood. I am very pleased this year because I think I have been hearing fewer leaf blower and more (swwooch swhoosh) hand rakes. Yeah!!! Raking is such a great way to get exercise, enjoy the fall, check out the yard, relax, hang out with the birds, get some sunlight, etc etc. My son is doing a lot of our raking this year, because he seems to need lots of cash and is OK with the rate I pay.

The raked leaves go right into the gardens that border my yard. I will remove them in the spring. Leaves are a perfect natural mulch. My friend Victoria sent me a great article recently about the benefits of using leaves on your gardens. It was from a Grow Native Cambridge newsletter and titled "The Importance of Leaf Litter". Here's are some excerpts:

... as we now prepare our gardens ... for winter, I thought we might reflect on our rather odd and somewhat recently adopted tradition of removing all leaves from our gardens and urban landscapes. It turns out, this is not a particularly ecological or wise thing to do...Numerous species of butterflies overwinter in leaf litter -- either as eggs, larvae or caterpillars, or in their pupal state....Leaf litter is an important part of the soil food web. It provides habitat for numerous insects, spiders, and other invertebrates. It is this balance of many different insects, and of predators and prey, that helps prevent outbreaks of isolated species of insect pests. And all these insects in the leaf litter provide important food for birds. Leaf litter is also habitat for salamanders and toads, and for other larger predators that control insect pests.-Claudia Thompson, Director, Grow Native Cambridge

Here, here!! The leaves look really nice in the gardens, too.

a new mulch for my vegetable beds

One of my projects this weekend was to weed and mulch my side yard vegetable beds.

Weeding the beds was a big job as I've neglected them recently. I removed two wheel barrows full to my compost bins. Most weeds had grown up in the paths between the beds.

After weeding, I spread mulch. A new product for me: Coast of Maine hay and straw mulch. Its finely chopped and sterilized and they say it doesn't have weed seeds. Its spreads very nicely and one bag covers lots of ground. I used it to suppress weed growth in my paths and to make a nice surface for walking on. I'm looking forward to using the rest of the bag for moisture retention in the vegetable beds at my community plot.

garden work

Today I spent most of the day at my community plot. After doing a few hours of path mowing and debris removal, I brought several wheel barrows full of wood chips to my plot. These are the remains of many Belmont trees that were blown over in the big wind storm 2 weeks ago. I spread a 2-3 inch layer on the paths between my raised beds.

Its perfect timing to get some mulch down as the summer is heating up and the garden needs help retaining its moisture. I'd like to buy some salt marsh hay tomorrow to mulch in the beds around the plants.

mulching with hay

I'd like to cover all my beds for the winter - to protect the soil microbes.

So I went to my plot today to spread the last of my hay. Two garlic plots are already mulched. And another bed is already covered with popcorn stalks.

Uncovered beds I noticed were the new asparagus bed, planted this spring. And my perennial bed with rhubarb, rose, thyme and oregano. I spread the last of the hay on these.

If I get a chance to buy more hay, I will. It would be good to cover a couple more beds.

I'm covering next year's heavy feeder beds with a layer of fresh horse manure, compost and winter rye. Three are done and one is still waiting for this. The perennials and the light feeder beds aren't getting these amendments. They're the ones to mulch with hay.

salt marsh hay

I found a nearby store with salt marsh hay. I bought 2 bales to mulch my fall vegetables. A bale of hay is enormous and easily covered all of my veggies. I'll have left overs for next year.

winterizing the garden

It was pretty chilly this morning. I guess winter will come again after all ....

Skippy and I did a few chores to continue to winterize the garden. "We" planted spring bulbs, turned over the bird bath, watered the dry fall greens, and "our" main job - mulch. I collected freshly cut grass from the fields and started mulching my beds.

Mulching with grass trimmings: I feel good tonight knowing my plants are tucked in with a nice covering of mulch. The fields nearby were recently mowed, so I collected cuttings and mulched my recently planted garlic bed. This bed also has carrots, broccoli and red lettuce. The grass trimmings probably have a lot of weed seeds. I'll see how bothersome this is in the spring. For now, its an easy and cheap solution for mulching. I've heard that our local hardware store has a new shipment of salt marsh hay. Tomorrow I'll buy a few bales of this, but at $10 a bale and knowing that mowing hay is not so good for the salt marsh, I'm wondering if grass trimmings aren't the better mulch.

Planting bulbs: I planted 5 small botanical tulip bulbs (Violacea black base) and 2 daffodils bulbs. I remember thinking how nice the spring flowers looked in other plots last year. Just a few go a long way.

The quotes above are because Skippy didn't help AT ALL today - HE wanted to PLAY. Skippy dug a BIG hole and ran all over the garden. I think the crisp fall air must feel GOOD to a puppy! That's OK, we went for a nice long walk in the fields together.

salt marsh hay

I found some mulching hay today. Two bales just barely fit in my trunk. Salt marsh hay is supposed to be good as it has less weed seeds than hay. It looks nice, protects plant roots and retains moistiure in the soil during the hot summer. Two bales will last a while for me, so I'll cover the extra with a tarp and save it.

I'll wait til our weather dries up until I put it on my plants. That certainly won't be tomorrow as the rain storm of the year predicted to arrive soon. I hope my garden doesn't get washed away....