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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Growing your own mulch?

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: pete <pete.rout@virgin.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Growing your own mulch?
  • Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:56:53 +0000



Harvey
In the UK the advice on leaves is not to compost them unless you have a few.
We always make them into leafmould.
For those who don't know leafmould is made by the action of fungi and moulds in an anaerobic heap. It is a cold process that can take two years to break down.
The heap of leaves is built up and watered if dry,(if you collect them in the rain or after rain they should be wet enough) and compressed down. Alternatively place them in a plastic bag, tie the top loosely and puncture the sides of the bag.
To break them down quicker shred the leaves and they can also be strewn on the lawn and mown and the grass will help them break down quicker.
Leafmould can be used as a mulch on the garden after a year.
Bob Flowerdew who is an organic gardener and writer did some tests using leafmould in seed mixes and found that seeds seemed to germinate better. One old book that I have on propagation said in the seed sowing chapter to put a layer of sieved leafmould in the seed tray to help germination.
Pete



Bruce, could you elaborate of the production of your leaf mould. It
sounds as if you are making it as a pure "leaf meal" as opposed to using
the leaves as the carbon component in composting? Do you do any further
processing other than heaping it and letting time and the microbes and
fungi do the rest?

Have you used the leaf mould to make seed starting mixes? I noted that
you use it in place of peat moss for soil improvement. I abandoned peat
moss years ago for my seed starting mixes, because of sustainability
concerns. I now use coir (short fiber coconut husk) instead, but would
sure like to come up with a local alternative that doesn't require
shipping from the other side of the planet.

The wine caps--did you inoculate the chips with a purchased spawn kit,
or did they volunteer? I've tried to get wine cap stropharia going twice
now with purchased spawn, with no luck. (Ironically, though, several
volunteered last year, the first I'd ever seen here.)

~Harvey

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