Kitchen Garden Forum

I have been out and about in my new red and white spotty wellies (bargain Asda 12.00) sweeping up bags and bags of leaves and I have put them into a large wooden compost bin in layers with a sprinkling of well rotted farmyard manure, topped with a layer of leaf mould. I have covered the whole lot in a thick layer of newspaper and cover the paper with black plastic.

Do you think it will become leaf mould by about March?, If not have you got ant ideas to make it decompose faster. I dont want to put compost rotter on it unless I realy have to. Dont want to put loads of manure on either coz im going to grow carrots in the resulting leaf mould next year.

Thanks

I would take the plastic off as leaves need to be moist and exposure to the rain is the best way to do this over winter.Pushing it a bit to rot down by spring my leaves seem to go quicker in the warmer weather as decomposition of leaves is mainly by fungi.
Geoff.

sounds like you need some of what bob flowerdew refers to as recycled cider as compost accelerater.

Dear Tracie, i take it you have collected a mixture of leaves, when you do this you end up making more of a leaf compost than proper leaf mould.
To make a proper leaf mould you need a hard leaf like Oak or Beech, and it will take at least a year to rot down, and longer depending on how fine you need it.
But getting back to your leaves, try and make sure they are fairly damp when you are putting them in your heap, if they are dry they won't start rotting very quickly.
One more thing that i find always helps, is to chuck the heap out and restack it in the winter, this should start the heap to heat up again.

Hello Tracie
You are going to finish up with a sort of compost.
Leaf mould should be made from just leaves. Making it is a slow process that can't be hurried. It relies on fungi slowly breaking down the leaves. One way of moving things along a bit is to shred the leaves beforehand - use a shredder, one of those leaf blower/shredder things or even run a rotary mower over them.
I use a leaf machine and stuff everything into one of those one tonne bags that builders use for sand and gravel deliveries. It gets watered as I fill up the bag. Once everything has settled I pull the top together and tie it and leave it all for a year. If I remember I will shake it up and turn it with a fork while its still in the bag. Always produces super black stuff.

John

When AT headed up GW, he used to collect up the leaves, put them into black bin bags, puncture them in several places with a garden fork and store them behind the compost bins for a year. I've done the same for years and it always works well.

Hi Tigger,
Ditto!!
JB.

I have a sure fire way of accelerating compost production from leaves.
I shred them first by making piles of them and runover with a rotary mover.
then when I put them on the compost heap I add layers (well just jumbled up messes) of green vegetation - often shredded using the mower as th leaves.

then I add urine - about 2-3 litres per 25cm layer.
Ensure th compost is always damp. and well compacted - to ensure few air spaces: I add shredded buddleia to add weight and cover with polythene (old sacks).
Rots down very quickly.-6-9 months

Goodness me - JB is in sync - I can hardly believe it or get over it?!?!

Hi Tigger,
Steady the boat a bit young lady, otherwise we will be accused of spatting!!!
JB.