Man, it's good to have a big truck sometimes....My full-size ford that I call Big Red sure can haul a load, and with only 3 daily trips through a neighborhood close to work - I have enough leaves to last me until this time next year. Oh yeah, it'll haul about 30-35 bags of leaves at a time, and my final bag count is around 100...
Here's a photo of Big Red waiting to be unloaded. This load was acquired in about 40 minutes during my lunchbreak from work, and I was fortunate that nobody had put any grass clippings out to be picked up. There's enough of them on-hand already....
Here's the segregated bags of contents out back....Those white bags are pine needles (for mulching around the fruit trees) and the bags to the right of them are all leaves. Glorious, brown leaves.....ah.....I counted the bags of leaves best I could, and came up with at least 80 of them. That should be enough to completely fill all bins, and some more for reserve, hopefully.
I also managed to pick up a few pumpkins and ornamental squash along the way, and they'll be busted open - then added to the piles as a nitrogen source. Hope pumpkins don't start sprouting everywhere next year! lol
Since Saturday was a gorgeous day for working outside and I really didn't have other plans, the laborious task of assembling the piles took place. I always build mine in 4" layers - kinda like making lasagna or something. Leaves, grass clippings, then thoroughly watered - and of course the process is repeated. Once the piles have shrunk about 6", UCG's are added to the top part of the mix, then fluffed and watered again. Here's the first one finished.....
Since the finished compost from last cycle is occupying an entire bin, i'll go ahead and start transferring it into recycled dog food bags for storage. That'll allow me to really get this party started. Yeehaw!
This will be a pretty lazy composting cycle, and will be tended to about once per month on average. Of course if I get bored, they'll get tended to more than that - you know how I have to be doing something all the time....lol
Take care, and happy composting!
EG
16 comments:
That's a lot of leaves!! I bet you will have a vine or two growing out of the compost bins next year!!
80 bags...wow. Your going to have a whole lot of very nice compost.
I love this time of year and folks throwing away all those luschious leaves. I wish I had pine needles close by. What a nice haul.
A truck would be so nice. I had to borrow my friends minivan to collect my leaves. I make my piles over time as I get green material. I'm so sad that this year I really didn't have my compost piles operating, but not much I could do about it.
Wow! 80 bags! Just think of all that black gold.
~~Lori
Robin - yeah, it's a pretty good bit, and pumpkin vines would certainly be welcomed...
Mr H - 80 will probably fill the bins, but i'll likely have to get more for surplus...
Tufa Girl - Thanks! It's nice to have you here!
Daphne - yeah, a truck is a good thing to have...
Dirt Lover - yeah, and i'll probably go back and get more. hehe...
So, I wonder if all the people in the neighborhood think your the local garbage picker! Ha! We have a truck now, and I am so excited to get to use it more for some garden stuff!
ShawnAnn - probably so, I even helped them bag some of it.
I chuckled when I read this post! I've been raking leaves for weeks. I have saved about 20 bags, and my husband keeps saying, "STOP collecting leaves". hahaha. My neighbor was "throwing" away her mum in a nice container, and I saw it when I was throwing out the garbage the other day. I said to my husband, I want to save that mum and take that container, and he begged me not to. He was like, please don't be that "neighbor", and they have a security camera out front so they'll know you took their mum. I didn't take it, but I should have!!
Nice haul EG. I get all sorts of squatters in my compost piles. This year we had an insane watermelon vine that was climbing tress and precariously setting fruit, it covered about 100 feet easily with vine. The area is mostly shaded though so notihng ever ripened. I also had a small butternut squash vine and a few tomatoes pop up in another pile. At least the uninvited cucurbits are easy to spot when they pay a visit!!
You've been a busy beaver. But, you got me at UCG's, don't know what that is.
Great too that you are recycling the leaves from going to a land fill!!!
Do you use the leafs whole or run them through a chipper? Does a chipper help speed up the compost process?
Mark - I take them as they come - whole or shredded. I don't have anything to shred them with, but it definitely speeds up the decomposition process.
Hubs and I are retired and trying to build up 1.6 acres that is pretty much a blank slate. We moved here in July in the middle of a drought and a month of triple-digit temps. We've picked up leaves for years for the garden. We feel extra lucky if the person who bagged them shredded them first. They do it so they'll get more into a bag, and when we get them they can go immediately wherever we need extra fill.
I found your blog through DirtTherapy and I'm seeing that your hot, dry weather is about like what I get here in Oklahoma. But we have harder winters than you do, I think. So I'm reading back posts to see all that you do to deal with the hot weather. I've already talked to Hubs about burying a length of PVC pipe in each bed.
Your blog is a "cyber workshop!" Thanks for doing it for all of us. --Ilene
Isn't it nice someone did most of the work. Racking & bagging leaves sucks!
Ilene - thanks for stopping by! Yeah, our weather is similar, and your winters are usually colder than ours. Feel free to browse through my older posts - there are about 400 of them....
Post a Comment