North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Kieran or Donna" <redherring@tnaccess.com>]

Ginda, I don't compost most leaves if I can help it, water won't run down
into them properly, you get dry sections in the pile, they are just a pain.
I mulch with them.  You must have more leaves than garden, but I seldom have
enough. Shredded leaves are much much better for composting.  Any Nitrogen
source will work, including fertilizer like 6-6-6.  Urine added to anything
with a lot of carbon ceases to smell immediately.  If it hasn't fermented,
it doesn't smell anyway.  The danger in carrying such a bucket from indoors
is you might spill it on the way.  Our bucket is outdoors already, we really
don't have much indoors!
Donna


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ginda Fisher" <ginda@concentric.net>
To: <nafex@egroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 9:05 PM
Subject: Re: [nafex] composting


> 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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