dommy wrote in
s.com:


I agree shredding is the key. I have a bag of wet unshredded leaves
and that havent even started to changed colour.

However my other bag which I shreded with garden shear (unfortunatly
dont have a shredder) and wetted has already started to turn into a
brown/blackish color after only 3 weeks.
--
dommy
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- posted via www.GardenBanter.co.uk


I had a pile of non-shreded leaves last year that composted quite
nicely. However, I did add nitrogen to get a good C/N ratio and
occasionally dumped rain water on it. If you have a compacted wet bag
of leaves, that's not going to compost fast at all because you need
oxygen. I bet if you dumped it out on the ground, and stirred it up
with a pitchfork, it'd start decomposing soon enough.

-- ST

I shredded 120 bags on 11/09/03 and shredded 100 bags today. I have one
shredder for my home use
and one for my landscape business. I don't have any grass on my
residential site.


Allview wrote:
=

There's a chipper shredder in my shed but I can't handle it, so I'm run=
ning the
mower which shreds nicely. I empty the bag around every plant I have f=
or
mulch. There's a little grass getting mowed and green with the brown i=
s good.
When everything is mulched, I will dump into a big wire bin where I con=
tribute
my kitchen garbage. Someday I'm going to have some real compost bins, =
but for
now I just have these big wire circles. I cut a little door at the bot=
tom and
shovel good stuff out when I need it. Even if it isn't nice crumbly co=
mpost
yet it will do.
Absolutely, you are recyling organic matter.
=

Marilyn
=



-- =

Celestial Habitats by J. Kolenovsky
2003 Honorable Mention Award, Keep Houston Beautiful
=F4=BF=F4 - http://www.celestialhabitats.com - business
=F4=BF=F4 - http://www.hal-pc.org/~garden/personal.html - personal

One method of shredding that I saw on Gardening by the Yard is to dump
your leaves into a large trash can, then use a string trimmer to shred
'em up. Wear eye protection, of course, and a mask to protect
yourself from flying debris.

I spent the weekend shredding my leaves with a blower/vac. (I don't
have a string trimmer.) Funny, the Chinese Hackberry leaves were a
bit difficult to shred, retaining much of their original form even
after being run through my blower/vac. The Maple leaves, however,
easily crumbled into fine particles.

Now leaf me alone. :}