Quote Originally Posted by tulip View Post
I have five very huge oak trees in my yard, and I collect all the leaves for my compost system. A leaf shredder would do wonders, but I'm hesitant to buy one because it's just another "thing." I'm sure one can be rented somewhere, and that would be ideal because I only need it once or twice in the fall. I'll call around.

I'm not a fan of burning at all. I'd rather cut it into smaller pieces and have a very long-term compost pile out of the way somewhere. Eventually it will break down, and you won't be polluting the air by burning.

--back to your Organic discussion--
My grandfather was a Master Gardener and he had a huge long-term compost pile of leaves and greenwaste from the garden, which was about 1/4 acre (on a 2-acre lake-front lot - the lawn was huge and populated with live oak, pine, fruit trees, azaleas, roses, lilies, and all kinds of other flowers). His garden was legendary in our county. He could grow anything.

He had a leaf cutter machine and it was well-used. A bonus to a big compost pile -- and this one was, like, 10 feet wide by 25 feet long, and a good four feet deep - we had to turn it with pitch forks -- the bonus, though, is that there were fantastic earth worms under those leaves, and they made for really good fishin' in the lake and they were great in the garden.

To give you an idea, when he'd grow Silver Queen corn, my cousin Jeff, when he was little, would climb up on his mom's shoulders to reach the tops of the plants to pick the ears and drop them down to whomever was holding the basket below. Not kidding.

And yeah, it was all organic. That garden fed multiple generations for many years. I was in my twenties, I think, before I ever had to buy a jar of jelly in a grocery store.

I still buy organic, and local, every chance I get because I really do think it tastes better, may be healthier, and it's good for the planet.

Roxy