How Can Dried Leaves Benefit Your Organic Vegetable Garden?
Do you know that the harmful elements of pesticides and chemical fertilizers used in your vegetable gardens go into your body as food? Yes, they can be harmful to you, more than any dreadful disease; including cancer. If you are aware of this, you must be growing your organic garden to get healthy vegetables.
Green Leaves are the heart and soul of your vegetable plants because they get their food. But, with the advent of the winter, the leaves fall and get dried. Never think of sending them off to a landfill because they can benefit your organic garden.
The dried leaves are important nutrients for your organic vegetable garden. You may think that the piled up dried leaves will smother your lawn. Although it is partially true, if you leave the leaves as mulch on the ground, you are supporting a healthier yard. It is an additional layer of organic materials on the surface of the ground.
The pile of leaves provides shelter and nesting facilities to a variety of insects and small wildlife that contribute to a healthy yard. The benefits of dried leaves can multiply if you make a planned approach and make an extra effort for making their best utilization.
Using Dried Leaves
You should be aware of the biological features of the benefits that could be reaped from the dried leaves
- If you mix the dried leaves, well to the soil of your garden, you will find that next year; the soil will be teeming with earthworm and other soil-friendly host organisms that will make the soil perforated for easy percolation of water and sun ray. They loosen and lighten heavy soil, and help sandy soils to remain moist.
- A six-inch-thick layer of dried leaves can act as a protector to tender plants from winter wind and cold. As a result, despite the winter, you can harvest cold-hardy vegetables such as kale, carrots, beets, and leeks.
- You can make a Leaf Mold, by raking the dried leaves in a huge pile. By shredding them, it shall help them to decompose faster. Even without shredding, you can make leaf mold. After 2 – 3 years, the fungi will break them down into a special kind of compost that is rich in magnesium and calcium. They can retain water, five times their body mass; it is a great supplement to your vegetable plants.
- They can boost your Compost Pile because the carbon contents can balance the high-nitrogen compost ingredients like fresh grass clippings. You can add some nitrogen fertilizers that are categorized as slow-release for better decomposition of leaves because the soil microbes can’t use all the nitrogen that is available.
- Other tips are adding nutrients like potassium and phosphorous, increasing the microbial life of the soil, boosting the water-holding capacity and improving its structure, known as tilt.
- Shred the dried leaves into five or ten pieces and drive over them a few minutes with the lawnmower. The shredded leaves increase the surface area and give microbes, more area to work. It also prevents the leaves to stick and pack together into layers and don’t allow air or water to penetrate. Moreover, it reduces the volume.
- You can pack them in plastic trash bags that are stashed in the barn for the next spring. You can then use them as mulch in your perennial gardens.
- When the weather turns cold, the potted plants are required to be brought Otherwise they will become dormant. You can choose a sheltered place on the west or north of your house and cluster the pots together, against your house, beneath an overhanging; a pile of dried leaves over and between the entire groupings of pots.
Besides sweeping out of your garage, cleaning of dryer duct, the blower is also used for clean-up of the light leaf. If you have an organic garden, you need to use the best leaf blower, particularly while dealing with the dried leaves in the winter season. The latest in the market does not involve the hassle of wires or cords.
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Just as green leaves, the dried leaves have immense benefits for gardeners, particularly for the ones, having organic gardens. It is for you to make the best utilization of the same so that the dried leaves make your garden, greener than ever.
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