Thanks Alice
Guess I'll just use it for mulch this year in the veg garden

What about tilling it into soil where I want to enrich the soil for grass?
Soil is currently very sandy and holds little moisture so I'm thinking the
loss of energy used to breakdown the leaves will be outweighed by more
moisture retention.


.......did I really spell detract that way?g

--

Barry


"Alice Gamewell" wrote in message
...
Good question. The leaves will break down, but may temporarly tie up the
nitrogen reserves in your soil. Evidence of this is yellow leaves. When
the
leaves are decayed the problem resloves. If you want to till in leaves
you can
add extra nitrogen,perhaps in the form of blood meal. Too many leaves can
also
lower the pH of the soil.

Brynk wrote:

Last fall I had many, many truckloads of leaves dumped on my property to
use
as soil ...when... they break down.

I have timber soil which is poor for most plantings.

I'd like to dump in a foot or so into my veg garden, as I do with horse
manure each year, but I'm wondering if it would detract from plantings
rather than enrich the soil.

Will more nutrients be used up to break down the leaves than feed the
vegetables?

--

Barry