Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

I have been using leafs for mulching our vegetable garden

for years, because we have a plentiful supply of dried leafs

from an wooded area (mainly madrone and cork oaks) on

our land.

 

However, lately I have been having second thoughts. Placing

seeds for cork oaks in the ground last fall, I was surprised

to find earthworms wherever I opened the ground, even in very

poor soil on sloping land where tilling under previous owners

has left only rubble and a bit of clay. On the other hand, in

rich soil on the wooded part of our property that hasn’t been

disturbed for decades, I didn’t find any earthworms at all.

 

Could it be that earthworms cannot digest dried leafs? If that

is the case, a mulch of leafs may cause earthworms to migrate

to other places. This would be a strong argument against the

use of leaf mulch in the garden.

 

Regards,

Dieter Brand, Portugal

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