"simy1" wrote in message
om...
"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.

You can probably do it (4-season gardening) but you need a lot of
space (so that your beds are full of veggies come november, then you
will harvest them without new growth through march) and you will also
need double layering. In Michigan I do single layering (poly tunnels),
and I harvested the last collards two weeks ago. What stopped me is
that I grazed the beds down to the ground. If I had more beds, I would
still be grazing.

To do double layering, you have to have one poly layer outside and
one inside. The air gap insulation will buy you three zones, you will
be in Zone 7, and there are lots of veggies that you can grow outside
in the winter in Zone 7. I am in Zone 5 this year (but Zone 6 in
previous years), and I am overwintering radicchio and mache outside
the tunnels.


That's what I am planning on doing, hoops or a coldframe and then another
layer wth poly. I found that discussion in the book very enlightening.


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

Leaf mold has a low nutrient content. It depends on what you want to
do. Leaves, in my mind, are good for three things:

1) start seedlings (I also use sifted, months-old manure, as well as
regular potting soil) in leaf mold

2) mulch around veggies (whole leaves) for moisture retention and


I would like it for this.

3) soil conditioning, specially for heavy clay (they will encourage
soil breakdown by worms) (also whole leaves are best)

but probably primarily this since we are building on an infill lot that has
been sodded for 5 years. I am sure the soil will need improvement. As soon
as we lose some of the snow cover, i will be collecting samples to test, but
I am trying to budget my gardening needs and making a landscape plan and I
need to make sure I have adequate space for compost piles and leaf mold
piles, if needed. I am not sure I will be able to generate enough compost to
improve the whole property so leaf mold would be great too, particularly in
the shady front yard. I will find out about community sources of compost
once I get going.


If you want to fertilize, you are better off getting something else
(grass clippings, kitchen scraps, any manure, even wood chips).



There are also other ways to fasten leaves decay. Amongst those,
mixing them with grass clippings or urea. But what is the point of
doing that, if you are going to use them as mulch? Let us know what
you want to do.

As a soil nutrient primarily.