North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <ginda@concentric.net>]

Ed, I have a pile of leaves that I've removed from my lawn for the last
couple of years (wet, full of worms, but shrinking slowly) and three
large garbage bags of shredded (lawnmower) leaves from this fall.  I put
a lot of shredded leaves on the blueberries to mulch them, but was
afraid they might be too acidic for the currants.  They're mostly oak
leaves.  Should I use then on the currants?  Shredded or aged?

Other than turning the pile, is there anything cheap and easy to do to
encourage it to decompose?  (Turning is cheap, but not that easy.)  I
usually leave the lawn clippings on the group - I figure they're good
for the grass.  Despite being well into suburbia, we have our quota of
critters so I don't want to leave food lying around.  I'm afraid the
neighbors would complain if we put urine on the pile.  Does it smell for
long?  I'm not really worried about weed seeds - nothing there that
didn't used to be on the lawn - but I'm running out of space to dump
leaves, and my car is too small to bring them to the dump.  (And I'd be
happy to have some free compost for my garden.)

Ginda 
Eastern Mass, zone 6
lots of small snowstorms this fall

> 
> This has worked very well for me and the township. They are happy to have a
> place to dump leaves (PA forbids that they put them in a landfill) Lasy
> year they came out with a large front end loader and "repiled" the leaves
> for me (that is almost like turning them). I use these leaves on the rows
> of gooseberries and currants to provide mulch, conserve moisture, and to
> provide some nutriants. Just seams like a "win/win" situation to me
> 
> 
> Northumberland BerryWorks
> 707 Front Street
> Northumberland, PA  17857
> Phone:  (570) 473-9910
> WWW.currants.com
> Ed@currants.com

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