It’s free and it’s fabulous – now’s the time to make leaf mould.
Chiswick is blessed with lots of street trees and they are now starting to drop their leaves with the approach of winter. This week, I’ve taken my first bags of leaves collected from my street to the allotment. Leaf mould is a fantastic soil conditioner which worms love. Use it as a mulch, and the worms will quickly incorporate it into the soil, improving the quality of both heavy and light soils. As an added incentive to the environmentally conscious, removing leaves from the street stops them clogging the drains and helps reduce the risk of flash floods after heavy rain.
It’s really easy. All you need to do is collect leaves and put them either in a specially made cage (4 stakes and some chicken wire) or simply in a black plastic bag with a few holes in the side. I use an old protection barrier, bought before I gave up on growing carrots. Keep them moist and aired, and you’ll have leaf mould good enough to use as a mulch within a year. After two, it’s a vital component of homemade potting compost. You can speed up the process by shredding the leaves first, or by mowing them, as demonstrated in this Gardener’s World video.
More detailed advice can be found on the RHS and BBC websites.
Leaf mould is certainly one of the best methods for making your own compost. However I would caution using the fallen leaves from public highways. The leaves themselves can already be contaminated from the exhaust and other emissions from vehicles and the actual collection of the leaves will invariably include some of the detritus which is always present on our roads and footpaths – cigarette butts for example are full of nicotine and the filter tips would take forever to breakdown. Several years ago the leaves used to be in great demand by allotmenteers and the council were glad of a free tip. This has now died out with the realisations of possible contaminants. Collect your leaves from your local park – keeping an eye out for the dog poo!!