Interesting study

[tulip]

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--

[OakLeaf]

Maybe it's more of a problem when you have a lot of invasives. We have tons of ailanthus and multiflora rose. If you just leave the cuttings lie, you now have an area that can't be mowed or weeded - prime growing ground for more invasives. Plus, you just run out of room for it all; hand cutting it into pieces small enough to put in the garden trailer would take weeks, literally.

Depending on where you live, I think occasional burning (once or twice annually, with a check of the local air quality ahead of time) isn't necessarily a bad option. Technically, you need ash in your compost pile anyhow.

Most equipment rental places do have chipper/shredders. But that's one of the few things that won't fit in the back of a Prius.

I wonder if it's possible to rent some goats that are trained to eat ailanthus and multiflora rose, but leave the raspberries and native roses alone?

[channlluv]

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

[tulip]

I would probably borrow a pickup truck for the day or two I have the shredder. I've also rented pickups before, and that's also an option. The hard part is finding someone to help unload and load the thing. I could probably buy a six pack for the college guys who live behind me.

I just got word that our Neighborhood Resource Center (lots of great kids programs) has started selling local eggs. They also have a Tuesday Farmers Market from their gardens. I have been getting my produce and eggs from a local farm stand, but I'm going to check out the NRC next week.

[GLC1968]

Oakleaf - I think we have both those varieties here (from the photos), too. I'm only just learning about invasive species in the PNW - totally different things from what I saw in NC or in FL (or even in New England). For us personally, blackberries and wild grapes are an issue...among other things. But the goats love em!

Our secret is having goats fenced in...then you just rip up the plants/branches that you don't want and bring them to their pen! Seriously, the amount of yard waste that we have 'left over' is soooo small. We actually lopped the tops off two old apple trees this winter and we managed to chop it all up for kindling or firewood. The amount that was 'waste' was barely enough to make a pile (even though it took us WEEKS of hard labor ).

We are definitely limited in our ability to burn (both in a yard pile AND from the woodstove) by the weather. If there is an inversion, you can get fined if you are caught with smoke coming out of your chimney! They take pollution pretty seriously around here - even in the country.

When we lived in NC - we used to run over the leaf piles with the lawn mower (with a bag on) to shred the few bags we needed for our tiny garden. It worked well and all the rest of the leaves were raked up and left at the curb for the city's leaf collection program. Now, we don't get enough leaves for all our needs. We collect all we can to dump on the garden, but we don't have to bother with shredding - with our warm, wet winters, it decomposes easily from a whole leaf. And we never have enough to add to the compost pile once we do the garden. It's such a joy in comparison to previous houses I've lived in where the fall leaf situation dominated our October weekends.

[Tuckervill]

re the chipper/shredder. I have a pecan grove (7 trees) and various oaks and pines, etc. We pick up a lot of fallen limbs. We made a cage for them near the fence with old fencing and we just pile them up high for a period of time (1-2 years). While it's building up, it provides a wonderful habitat for birds and furry animals (we've seen bunnies). Every so often we rent a chipper (about $100 for a weekend) and chip it all up and use it for mulch. We get about two years of mulch out of one weekend's worth of chipping.

So if you didn't want to invest in a chipper, this could be the way to go.

Karen

[GLC1968]

re the chipper/shredder. I have a pecan grove (7 trees) and various oaks and pines, etc. We pick up a lot of fallen limbs. We made a cage for them near the fence with old fencing and we just pile them up high for a period of time (1-2 years). While it's building up, it provides a wonderful habitat for birds and furry animals (we've seen bunnies). Every so often we rent a chipper (about $100 for a weekend) and chip it all up and use it for mulch. We get about two years of mulch out of one weekend's worth of chipping.

So if you didn't want to invest in a chipper, this could be the way to go.

Karen

That's a really good idea - particularly if you have space to pile the stuff out of your way. We might have to do this with our next major pruning project. One little house only needs so much kindling!

[tulip]

I have started a kindling collection from the branches that my oak trees shed. I'll use it in my wood stove in the winter, along with logs and perhaps even coal. There's a dead city tree that I pass by on my walks--I wonder if I could get the logs when they cut it down (it as a big orange X on it, so I assume it's on the list). I live in the city, but I do have a nice big compost area in my back yard, and I really enjoy all that work, especially in the crisp, fall weather.

My vegetable garden is pretty small this year, but I hope it will be bigger and more productive next year. I use all that composted leaf mulch on my perennials, too, of which I have many.