John Bachman wrote:

On Mon, 02 May 2005 02:19:39 GMT, msterspy
wrote:


I live in the Boston area and I have about 5 oak trees and two pines.
I get a lot of leaves and I recently contracted a guy to move all of
the leaves to the rear corner of the yard. $300 for probably 1/2 day
work. Everything is expensive in the Boston area. Anyway, it would be
very costly to have the leaves carted off to the dump. The yard slopes
away form the house and it would be cost a lot more to remove the
pile.
I would like to add something like lime to speed up the decompostion.
Is this a good plan? Is there any other beter way to speed up the
proceess. There will be a huge pile of leaves and it builds up every
year.


There are several things that you can do to speed up the composting
process. I list them in the order of effectiveness.

1. Chop the leaves into smaller pieces with a lawn mower or other
device.

2. Turn the pile periodically. I use a compost thermometer to
monitor the internal temperature and when it starts to drop I turn the
pile. This turns whole leaves into compost in one year.

3. Adding lime will reduce the natural acidity of oak leaves and pine
needles to the benefit of the bacteria that are doing the composting
work.

Add in some soil while you are turning. This will provide the needed
bacteria. Adding a little bit of fertilizer helps, but isn't
necessary. Also, just be patient. When the temp increases, the
decomposition will proceed quickly.

We also, use the leaf pile to composte vegetable cooking waste and
coffee grounds. The result is used in planting the gardens. It has a
high water-holding ability.