We always look forward to autumn and the dropping of the leaves. Not just because it’s so darn pretty but because it’s the start of the super fun process of making leaf mould compost.
Since starting the nursery we’ve had an aim of total self-sufficiency. There’s a couple of areas that we don’t have the space for. Like seeds (we can save some but not all) and river sand (aint got no river!). But when it comes to soil we’re pretty on track.
We have four compost structures operating in different ways. We have the chooks who also act as compost accelerators. And once a year we get the leaf mould compost going. It’s a great way to make a super light, peat-like soil which is perfect for mixing with filtered compost and river sand to make the loveliest seed-raising mix.
There are many different ways of making leaf mould compost depending on what equipment/space/impatience you have. This method is the cheap, lazy and quickish method!
Equipment:
Old rubbish bin or similar shaped item. We use an old plastic rubbish bin we found on the side of the road, turned upside down with the bottom cut out.
A cover of some description. We use a big plastic plant pot that sits in the top whole and pushes the leaves down as they settle. The holes in the bottom of the pot also let rainwater in to keep the leaves moist.
A whole lot of leaves
A wheelbarrow
A sieving device – we use an old bed base
Kids to help (optional 🙂 )
All you need to do is fill your old bin with your leaves and give them a good drenching. Then nature will do the rest! As there is a good surface area to the ground the worms will get in and do their work. And the leaves will mold up and break down into a lovely rich humus. We did our annual process last weekend so here’s some photos of our results.
Last years leaves broken right down. You can see there’s still some leaves in there so we’ll give it all a good sift to get the soil out. The left over leaves will make the base for the next batch.
When we pulled the bin off you can see the wonderful rich black soil. We had some plant get some roots up in there as well so we’ll filter them out.
Our sifting system is an old bed base placed on top of our wheelbarrow. Although it’s a bit awkward to work with so we’re plannign on building a new system soon, stay tuned for that!
Next we just shoveled all the contents from our bin on top and gave it a good shake to sift the good soil through. Then we were left with about 20L of wonderful rich but super light soil which is the perfect basis of a seed raising mix. The leaves that were left over got popped back in our upside down bin, which was filled up with this years autumn leaves.
We keep this mix nice and wet for the next month to make sure the decomposing process takes good hold. And we’ll keep adding leaves every weekend until the leaves have stopped falling to make sure we have a good amount of soil as it settles.
And there you have it! Super easy and super rewarding, and compared to our other compost systems, not at all labour intensive so that’s a bonus. I just check in on it once a month and make sure it’s not too dry. The benefits to good soil are huge as this type of composting leaves you with a soil which has excellent structure and moisture holding properties.
Our only problem is we only have one bin making leaf mould. I’m definitely on the look out for another abandoned container that would be suitable for this technique so we can double capacity!
Power Plants Community Nursery 