Readers’ gardens
Lovely leaf mould is key
It’s not over! It may seem like the gardening season is coming to an end but there’s still lots to do throughout autumn and winter. It’s a good time to plan, organise and set the foundations right for next season. With that in mind, and as the streets and lawns are covered with leaves, it’s time to take advantage of this wonderful gift from nature and make leaf mould.
After a long growing season our garden beds can be exhausted and as leaves are full of trace elements they’re great for re-mineralising your growing beds; it’s nature’s way of giving back. Leaf mould is a slow, cold composting method that takes advantage of fungal activity to break down the leaves, so is a good way of building all important fungal life in the soil, which is sadly lacking in a lot of our soils. The damage to fungal life in soils is made worse by digging and breaking up the mycelium networks. So it’s important to try to rebuild that fungal life and leaf mould provides the perfect opportunity to do so.
When collecting leaves I have a few rules, firstly not to collect them from where they may harm the natural eco system, such as woods, under bushes and on bare growing beds. Leaving leaves on bare soil is a good way of protecting it from the elements and encouraging the soil biology to work its magic. I like to collect leaves from places they may cause a nuisance, for example on hard surfaces, lawns and where they could wash in drains causing blockages. That way we’re serving more than one purpose at the same time.
I’ve changed the way I make some of my leaf mould so I can use it to heat my greenhouse throughout winter. I also use the traditional hot bed method to provide a source of heat for my plants in my greenhouse, which enables me to overwinter plants such as chillies and ginger outside. I’ve done videos on my YouTube channel documenting how I set up my compost heating systems. I still had lots of chillies to harvest and a few tomatoes still producing even in November, both of which I’ve kept going for as long as I can. I’ll also sow my onion seeds, peas and broad beans for next year as well as a variety of flowers. That was one of the things missing this year that I want more of next year – lots of pretty flowers.
This month I had the opportunity to do something different; I was invited to speak on the importance of compost at a local school. I was met by a really eager audience – eager to learn and eager to get stuck in! Together we started to set the foundations of their new garden.