So you’re embracing Goth gardening. How will you get started? Black gardening gloves? A black baseball cap? Dress your way…gardening is not just for old ladies. Your yard…your rules…
Keeping Promises
But I promised you in How to Be a Goth Gardener (see archive) that composting is easy, and I’m here to make good on that promise.
You can’t ignore the carpet of leaves on the grass, because left alone they would kill the lawn. You might whine about raking up leaves…but having to completely reseed your lawn is arguably a less friendly task.
Be a Leaf Hugger
On the other hand, raking all the leaves up can appear to be a pointless effort, since they all end up on the curb, ready for hauling away.
Remember—decay is your friend. But make friends with it on your terms. The solution is a lot easier than you might think and can involve some fun for the kids.
Take Simple, Quick Steps
In a test to see how quickly we could dispatch the job, Craig and I went at the front lawn together—starting at opposite ends. We worked diligently, but we weren’t racing. In 30 minutes, we had the leaves piled onto the driveway.
Now this is not the place to let your kids jump in them because of the concrete driveway–obviously. If you want to play jump-in-the-leaves—highly recommended!–first leave them in a pile on the grass. Move them to the driveway after the frivolity. Once the kids are covered in leaf bits and giggles, they’ll love helping with the next part.
Here’s the super-easy part—to get them ready for composting—just grind them up with your lawn mower.
- Grind up leaves with mower
- Move them to staging area for composting.
Hey, Ma! Watch This!
Here’s a quick video to show you how to do it.
Was I right? Super easy!
Moving them to the backyard only took us 18 minutes. We decided on a staging area first, and then moved the ground-up leaves to that spot one batch at a time. Use whatever carrying tool you’ve got handy. We used an old broken hose container.
Hungry for Decay
So…you’re wondering why we didn’t put them directly into the compost pile? See the next post and video called: Teensy Soil Minions
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Great video! However, if you use a leaf blower they will automatically get ground up.
So, true! But some people don’t like starting and stopping so much, because the bag is so small. Also, for me, I don’t like the noise pollution from leaf blowers!