Once a year I go through my neighbors' trash looking for gold. That gold would be the lovely leaves from the trees that have been falling. I'll turn them into compost next year. Luckily for decades the towns I've been in or close to have required leaves be left in paper bags because they compost them. This makes it really easy to collect them.
Not all bags on the curb are gold though. Some are sticks or weeds going to seed. I can often tell what is in the bag from the top and by how heavy it is, but some cruft gets through. That all gets sorted out and put back on the curb for the town to take.
As I empty a bag I water the leaves so they start to break down. I get out any trash. I always find some. Last year I swear someone ate a bag of Halloween candy and left all the wrappers in the leaves. I got as much out as I could find, but when I was sifting compost this fall, I found more. This year there wasn't a lot of trash which made me very happy. But it was enough to half fill up that yellow bag at my feet.
I always fill up two bins with leaves and put a handful of extra leaf bags by the compost where we put our kitchen scraps. We always cover our kitchen scraps with some nice brown leaves. I always put a few of the bags still intact on the top of the bins. This keeps the leaves from blowing away. I wouldn't want to lose any of those precious leaves once I get them.
I usually don't ask my husband to help me with the gardening chores as he doesn't like doing them and I do, but he helps with this one and makes it go much faster. This year was quite pleasant too. It hadn't rained for a while, so all the leaves were dry and light. We had a warm sunny afternoon. Even the neighbors were chatty as they wanted to know what I was going to do with all those leaves. I wish every leaf collection day I had would be as nice.
It looks like a nice haul of leaves and you can compost the bags too. Even though we rake up our own leaves for the compost bin, I end up finding some plastic when sifting. Trash always seems to blow around.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to recycle green waste. Lucky for you to be able to collect it the bags and compost them down too. We use all our green waste on our farm for compost along with our kitchen scraps.
ReplyDeleteAnother job done - must feel great! You have such a wonderful compost area - I'm really hoping to get a nice, big compost setup going, hopefully next year.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great haul of leaves! They are way too valuable to waste, that's for sure. Unfortunately in our area too many wind up on the landfill. I'll rake ours up when they stop coming down and them run them through the shredder. Some will go on the compost pile and I'll spread some on the garden and sheet compost them there.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad for you that the job was enjoyable this time. I have a garden full of Maple leaves now, but they are wet and I'm not looking forward to sweeping them up. I have an electric leaf blower / sucker but it only works well when the leaves are dry. We have a kerbside "Green waste" collection arrangement, but you have to pay to participate (which I don't). The waste is made into Municipal compost, which you can buy.
ReplyDeleteNot a bad racket. Your neighbors rake and bag the leaves and you profit. And the town doesn't have to collect them. They should pay you per bag. This reminds me, it's time to rake the leaves, before the first snow.
ReplyDeleteI finally broke down and bought a rider mower a couple of months ago - but it doesn't mulch! I usually just mulch and leave everything on the lawn. So I raked and bagged up as many as I felt like (which wasn't many). Saving them for next year when I build my BIG compost space a lot like yours!
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