Those who don't receive Dave's Garden -- and those who do -- might
laugh (through their tears) at this calculation of the weight of
fallen leaves.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1920/

HB

Higgs Boson wrote:

Those who don't receive Dave's Garden -- and those who do -- might
laugh (through their tears) at this calculation of the weight of
fallen leaves.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1920/

a compost pile is much better than burning them.

we don't have too many leaves here, but a friend
brings extra bags raked up from their yard for me
to use. it works out well for building up some low
spots and for digging into the clay.

gives the worms something to work on or if buried
deeply enough (in the heavy soil we have) it turns
into a form of peat that eventually i dig up and
mix throughout the garden soil.


songbird

On 10/30/12 2:27 PM, songbird wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:

Those who don't receive Dave's Garden -- and those who do -- might
laugh (through their tears) at this calculation of the weight of
fallen leaves.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1920/

a compost pile is much better than burning them.

we don't have too many leaves here, but a friend
brings extra bags raked up from their yard for me
to use. it works out well for building up some low
spots and for digging into the clay.

gives the worms something to work on or if buried
deeply enough (in the heavy soil we have) it turns
into a form of peat that eventually i dig up and
mix throughout the garden soil.


songbird



I have to rake the leaves off the back lawn. Otherwise, the leaves will
smother the grass and leave dead patches.

I place at least 6 inches of leaves in all the beds as a mulch. When
the weather turns hot and dry in the summer, this keeps the soil cool
and moist.

After the beds are all mulched, I stir leaves into my compost pile.
Actuall, it's not compost. It's leaf mold since there is little green
matter.

Even then, I have mounds of leaves on the patio and paths, sometimes
more than 2 ft high. These go every week into the green trash bin for
the county's composting program.

All of the above are leaves in my back yard from the ash tree.

In front, I allow the leaves from my oak, zelkova, and liquidambar to
accumulate on the lawn and in the shrub beds. The lawn is not grass;
it's Persicaria, a ground cover. The leaf mulch protects the ground
cover from occasional night frosts in winter. In the spring, the
Persicaria grows up through the leaves.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean, see
http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary

Higgs Boson wrote:
Those who don't receive Dave's Garden -- and those who do -- might
laugh (through their tears) at this calculation of the weight of
fallen leaves.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1920/

HB

This contained some new information for me, living in a land of mainly
evergreen trees I didn't imagine that there were places where leaf fall was
such a big event - assuming the estimate of a depth of 3ft is correct.
Avoiding the no-brainer, between burning and composting, I am lead to a
couple of issues.

If you have so many deciduous trees that they produce a depth of 3 feet of
leaves a season (seems doubtful but accepted for the point of discussion)
then you are living in a forest. Where there are natural forests of this
kind do people head out every weekend in the season to rake up the forest
floor lest it look messy or kill the grass? Processing 100 tons a year (if
true) is just absurd. Methinks the core of the problem is that they love
their lawn and the idea of an artificial cleared park too much.

If a gardener has way too much work to do then they suffer one of two
conditions: they take on too much or they suffer from terminal neatness.
The author appears unfortunately to have both diseases at once.

Secondly I found the repeated detailed explanation, with formulae, tables
(and a video!!!!), of how to estimate your volume of leaves amazing. Is the
education system in the USA so poor that such sophisticated computations are
dangerous territory for many of the population?

Tell me this was all a joke.

David

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:39:02 +1100, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

Higgs Boson wrote:
Those who don't receive Dave's Garden -- and those who do -- might
laugh (through their tears) at this calculation of the weight of
fallen leaves.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1920/

HB

This contained some new information for me, living in a land of mainly
evergreen trees I didn't imagine that there were places where leaf fall was
such a big event - assuming the estimate of a depth of 3ft is correct.
Avoiding the no-brainer, between burning and composting, I am lead to a
couple of issues.

If you have so many deciduous trees that they produce a depth of 3 feet of
leaves a season (seems doubtful but accepted for the point of discussion)
then you are living in a forest. Where there are natural forests of this
kind do people head out every weekend in the season to rake up the forest
floor lest it look messy or kill the grass? Processing 100 tons a year (if
true) is just absurd. Methinks the core of the problem is that they love
their lawn and the idea of an artificial cleared park too much.

If a gardener has way too much work to do then they suffer one of two
conditions: they take on too much or they suffer from terminal neatness.
The author appears unfortunately to have both diseases at once.

Secondly I found the repeated detailed explanation, with formulae, tables
(and a video!!!!), of how to estimate your volume of leaves amazing. Is the
education system in the USA so poor that such sophisticated computations are
dangerous territory for many of the population?

Tell me this was all a joke.

Probably serious, seriously stupid. I have large lawn areas with
several large trees and large forest areas with lots of trees. I
never ever rake leaves. The leaves in the forest are free to do their
own thing. The leaves on my lawn early on mostly blow away and the
few that accumulate under trees get taken care of with my last mowing,
I have mulching blades. Come spring after the snow melts there are no
leaves, they have all blown away and/or decayed. I've never seen
leaves accumulating feet deep, more like a couple inches the most due
to rain holding them plastered down, once they dry they blow away,
where to, into the forest of course. In some areas leaves accumulate
on the lawn at the very edge of the forest (depends on wind
direction), after winter they get taken care of with the first mowing.
Mulching blades are your friend, I never collect grass clippings
either. The closest I come to raking leaves is very occasionally
(once, maybe twice a year) I use a leaf blower on my driveway to blow
spruce needles and cones back under the adjacent Norway spruce
windbreak... and in spsring I use the leaf blower to blow teh
accumulated with road grit from salt and sand from the foot of my
blacktop driveway back into the road... I do that early, before the
town sends the street sweeping machines out. I suppose if someone
lives on a small surburban lot surrounded by fence leaves can
accumulate, but I once lived that way and still I used a riding mower
with mulching blades, within an hour there were no leaves on my
quarter acre.

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
...
Higgs Boson wrote:
Those who don't receive Dave's Garden -- and those who do -- might
laugh (through their tears) at this calculation of the weight of
fallen leaves.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1920/

HB

This contained some new information for me, living in a land of mainly
evergreen trees I didn't imagine that there were places where leaf fall
was such a big event - assuming the estimate of a depth of 3ft is correct.

From having lived in an area (Southern Highlands) where there were only
deciduous trees where we lived (and lots of them) I'd say the claim of 3 ft
of fallen leaves is a crock.

Brooklyn1 wrote:
Tell me this was all a joke.

Probably serious, seriously stupid. I have large lawn areas with
several large trees and large forest areas with lots of trees. I
never ever rake leaves. The leaves in the forest are free to do their
own thing. The leaves on my lawn early on mostly blow away and the
few that accumulate under trees get taken care of with my last mowing,
I have mulching blades. Come spring after the snow melts there are no
leaves, they have all blown away and/or decayed. I've never seen
leaves accumulating feet deep, more like a couple inches the most due
to rain holding them plastered down, once they dry they blow away,
where to, into the forest of course.

Here in Seattle, not removing leaves results in significant patches of dead lawn
in the spring from the always wet leaves. They lay there in clumps, and the lawn
composts beneath them.

I'm sure your neighbors love your blown away leaves.

I rake them into the ornamental beds for free mulch. They definately keep down
the weeds.

On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:15:49 -0700, "Bob F"
wrote:

Brooklyn1 wrote:
Tell me this was all a joke.

Probably serious, seriously stupid. I have large lawn areas with
several large trees and large forest areas with lots of trees. I
never ever rake leaves. The leaves in the forest are free to do their
own thing. The leaves on my lawn early on mostly blow away and the
few that accumulate under trees get taken care of with my last mowing,
I have mulching blades. Come spring after the snow melts there are no
leaves, they have all blown away and/or decayed. I've never seen
leaves accumulating feet deep, more like a couple inches the most due
to rain holding them plastered down, once they dry they blow away,
where to, into the forest of course.

Here in Seattle, not removing leaves results in significant patches of dead lawn
in the spring from the always wet leaves. They lay there in clumps, and the lawn
composts beneath them.

Then for you more than for me mulching blades are your friend.

I'm sure your neighbors love your blown away leaves.

Their properties are no different, they do exactly the same.

I rake them into the ornamental beds for free mulch. They definately keep down
the weeds.

Here those leaves would just blow away... large bark nuggets make a
much better/cleaner bedding mulch, leaves in foundation planting beds
smell and attact vermin. I'm looking outside now, my lawn is all a
lush green, all the leaves have recently fallen, hardly a leaf in
sight.
Just now took these... what should I rake:
http://i46.tinypic.com/dw8lt1.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/1exwte.jpg

David E. Ross wrote:
....
Even then, I have mounds of leaves on the patio and paths, sometimes
more than 2 ft high. These go every week into the green trash bin for
the county's composting program.

All of the above are leaves in my back yard from the ash tree.

In front, I allow the leaves from my oak, zelkova, and liquidambar to
accumulate on the lawn and in the shrub beds. The lawn is not grass;
it's Persicaria, a ground cover. The leaf mulch protects the ground
cover from occasional night frosts in winter. In the spring, the
Persicaria grows up through the leaves.

that last sounds very nice.


songbird

Brooklyn1 wrote:
On Wed, 31 Oct 2012 08:15:49 -0700, "Bob F"
wrote:

Brooklyn1 wrote:
Tell me this was all a joke.

Probably serious, seriously stupid. I have large lawn areas with
several large trees and large forest areas with lots of trees. I
never ever rake leaves. The leaves in the forest are free to do
their own thing. The leaves on my lawn early on mostly blow away
and the few that accumulate under trees get taken care of with my
last mowing, I have mulching blades. Come spring after the snow
melts there are no leaves, they have all blown away and/or decayed.
I've never seen leaves accumulating feet deep, more like a couple
inches the most due to rain holding them plastered down, once they
dry they blow away, where to, into the forest of course.

Here in Seattle, not removing leaves results in significant patches
of dead lawn in the spring from the always wet leaves. They lay
there in clumps, and the lawn composts beneath them.

Then for you more than for me mulching blades are your friend.

If I don't remove the leaves, the "mulch" will kill the lawn. The grass just
can't breath under it.


I'm sure your neighbors love your blown away leaves.

Their properties are no different, they do exactly the same.

I rake them into the ornamental beds for free mulch. They definately
keep down the weeds.

Here those leaves would just blow away... large bark nuggets make a
much better/cleaner bedding mulch, leaves in foundation planting beds
smell and attact vermin. I'm looking outside now, my lawn is all a
lush green, all the leaves have recently fallen, hardly a leaf in
sight.

Wet leaves don't blow all that much.


Just now took these... what should I rake:
http://i46.tinypic.com/dw8lt1.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/1exwte.jpg

If you don't have significant trees nearby, you don't have a problem.