I do not think that you can hurry along the leaf mold. It does take
time - about 2 or 3 years where I live, but the resulting leaf mould
is well worth the wait. I use it for the woodland plants. If the
summer is long, hot and lots of rain then leaf mould will be made much
quicker.

I find that whole leaves decompose rather poorly in the compost pile.
I prefer to keep them separate, and as they do shrink down very
quickly, it does not take up any room at all. One little wire bin
about 4' x 4' will hold many many leaves from quite a few big trees.
Two years worth can be put in the same bin as the last years' will
have shrunk down quite a lot over just one year. It will not be leaf
mould until it is all crumbly. I do not think that this type of
decompostion benefits at all from aeration like the regular compost
pile. I always keep it well compacted and water it a bit if I am near
with the hose, in the "heat" of summer.

"mmarteen" wrote in message ...
I just finished reading Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman (not that my
expectations are that high here in MN) and he advocates using scraps and
straw to make compost and using leaves to make leaf mold. Leaf mold seems
to be a much more lengthy process from the way he describes it in the book,
where you have to keep leaves sort of composting by themselves for over a
year.

If I am already going to make compost and I am not running an organic farm
like Coleman, should I try to make leaf mold or just compost some and bag
the rest? Opinions?

Other than chopping up the leaves, is there anything else I can do to make
the process go faster? For example, will a tumbling composter, either
storebought or homemade, make the process go faster just as with compost?

mm