What to Do With Fallen Leaves — Eco-Friendly Options
On many of our properties, we maintain two ecosystems simultaneously, in the same place - the trees are a forest, the lawn is a grassland. In nature these are different ecosystems, so how do we perform this feat? By removing the fall leaves. Wet leaves piled high kill grass. A forest floor has many leaves, but few to no grasses.
Might there be an alternative to the aforementioned default which is friendlier to the non-human lives we share our yards with? After all, many of the insects and other invertebrates we share our yards with use fallen leaves and other organic debris as housing for the winter. One option, gaining in popularity, is to just leave the leaves where they fall. Leaves piled just a few inches thick - mimicking natural ecosystems - can serve as a home for important invertebrates. For example, red-banded hairstreaks will lay their eggs on fallen oak leaves - when the caterpillars hatch in spring, it's those same leaves they will eat for nourishment. Your yard is now part of nature's cycles.
For some, this won't be a viable option. Perhaps it's aesthetically unacceptable or perhaps the kids use the lawn as a play area. I'd like to walk through some alternative options.
Make a Pile
Rake the leaves and pile them up in some unobtrusive portion of your yard. This will help the non-human life in your yard pass the winter comfortably. If you compost in your yard put the leaves in a pile near your composting receptacle - they make the perfect carbon-rich "browns" for your compost. Come summer, you'll be very happy with your past self of thinking ahead. I see many compost piles which lack "browns", and so end up soggy and smelly. A 3-4 foot high circle made out of garden wire fencing makes a nice structure to hold those leaves near your compost receptacle. Another use for those leaves is in the garden - they make a wonderful mulch to place around your plants. Just spread out the leaves on your lawn, run a mower over the leaves a few times to chop them up, rake the leaf bits up, and apply as mulch. If you don't have a good use for the leaves - either for your compost setup or in a garden - but don't want a pile of leaves in the corner of your yard indefinitely, wait till the temperatures in spring are consistently and reliably in the 50's, then spread them out on your lawn and run your mower over them a couple of times. In a few weeks, they will have decomposed, with the added benefit of feeding your lawn.
Chop 'Em Up
If leaving a pile of leaves isn't an option, consider running a mower over the leaves to chop them up into small bits. Then just leave them! Over a few weeks, they should decompose and disappear, with the added benefit of feeding your lawn. This option does less for overwintering insects in your yard, but it feeds your lawn and is easier than bagging leaves up or moving them to the curb.
Mulch for Ornamental Beds
Finally, if you have ornamental beds with open space, consider raking the leaves into those beds, as they make a good mulch for the beds. Make sure to not pile them too deep, which could damage existing plants in your ornamental beds. A thick layer of leaves can mat and smother existing plants. If this is a concern, reduce the leaves' volume drastically by first chopping them up with a lawn mower, then raking them into the beds.
Leaves make excellent mulch for native plant gardens too — another reason to consider adding a native pollinator garden to your property.
These alternatives may take a bit more planning, but you'll be satisfying your aesthetic or functional needs while also taking local natural cycles into account. Plus, you'll be utilizing a free resource which is literally raining down upon us from the big oxygen-generating life forms which tower above us. If you want some help dealing with the leaves in your yard this fall in a more eco-friendly way, give us a holler at www.growourfood.com/contact. We use only hand tools and electric tools powered by renewable energy. Happy fall everyone!