When a tree sheds its leaves, we must remember that it is giving us a gift. The gift of nutrients that you can use to make more life grow.

Instead the municipal corporation, the waste contractor and the sophisticated urban home owner want dried leaves removed from their streets and public spaces. They see this as a waste, a nuisance and a burden. It's time to wake up. Cities abroad now ban leaf litter on trucks to landfills. They want people to use dried leaves as they are supposed to be used, as mulch, compost and soil amendment.

Cities are running out of landfill sites, so filling them up with dried leaves is a very costly mistake. Most Indian cities have sweepers from the corporation instructed to collect dried leaves and dump them into the truck with all other kinds of waste, plastic, glass, food etc. This is such a short sighted strategy. Leaf litter needs to be treated with much more respect.

Stop sending leaves to the landfill. Stop asking people to sweep them and burn them. Stop wasting this gift!

Back to Top

Dried leaves are truly a valuable natural resource! They contain 50 to 80 percent of the nutrients a plant extracts from the soil and air during the season. Therefore, leaves should be managed and used rather than hauled to landfills.

There are three basic ways in which dried leaves can be managed and used in the landscape.

Mulching

Soil Improvement

Composting dried leaves

Back to Top

Mulch is any type of material that is spread or laid over the surface of the soil (around plants too) as a covering.

The best mulches are porous enough to permit penetration of air and water to the soil, thereby promoting plant health. There are many organic mulches, wooden chips, bone meal, straw etc.

Leaf mulch (made of dried leaves) is one such organic mulch.

Back to Top

Beginners often confuse leaf compost and leaf mulch. The confusion is understandable, since mulch eventually breaks down and becomes compost in its own right. But although compost and mulch are related, they nonetheless distinct and serve two different functions.

For mulch, you use dried leaves that are not composted yet. For, once they decompose, they're no longer mulch -- they're compost. And as compost, they can no longer carry out one of the main functions of mulch, which is to suppress weeds. In fact, weeds will grow...well, like weeds, if given a layer of compost in which to reside! Perhaps no other point so clearly highlights the difference between compost and mulch.

When dried leaves are to be used as a mulch, they should NOT be thoroughly decomposed. A mulch serves not only as a weed suppressor, but also as a barrier between your soil and the heat, cold and wind from which you want to protect it. The mulch barrier lies exposed on the soil surface, so that your soil doesn't have to. When leaves have thoroughly decomposed, they're less effective as such a barrier. It is somewhat wasteful to employ decomposed leaves in such a manner, since the nutrients they harbor should be protected for use underground (by plant roots), not exposed to the elements. It simply makes more sense to let non-decomposed materials do the rough-and-tumble work of serving as barriers.

Back to Top

Remember that since dried leaves are rich in carbon, they take much longer to break down compared to the nitrogen rich grass clippings or kitchen waste. And some leaves decompose slower than others. Also, leaf mulch (mold) happens mainly by the slow, cool action of fungi - rather than the quicker acting bacteria that are responsible for composting. This is also why it takes longer. But also keep in mind that this period of 6-12 months requires almost little or no effort on your part!

If you are getting impatient, you could try some of these to speeden up the process of composting!

• Shred the leaves before adding to the bin. Smaller pieces decompose faster.
• On top of each layer of dried shredded leaves, add a handful of grass clippings (this adds the necessary nitrogen to break down the leaves faster).
• You could also add some compost accelerator.
• Spread a plastic or tarpaulin sheet over the leaves to keep them consistently moist and warm in case you live in a cold climate in India.

Back to Top

Yes you can add twigs and branches, but make sure you break them down into smaller bits.
Palm fronds are best cut into smaller bits and then put into the mulch bin.

Back to Top

Leaf mulch has several uses in the garden.

It can be dug into the garden beds to improve soil structure and water retention.

It can be used as mulch in perennial beds or vegetable gardens.

It is also good in plant containers, due to its water retaining abilities.

Leaf much can be used as an ingredient for potting mix with equal parts of sand and compost.

Apply a 3 to 6 inch layer of shredded leaves around the base of trees and shrubs. In annual and perennial flower beds, a 2 to 3 inch mulch of shredded leaves is ideal. For vegetable gardens, a thick layer of leaves placed between the rows function as a mulch and an all-weather walkway that will allow you to work in your garden during wet periods. Mulches are especially beneficial when used around newly established landscape plants, greatly increasing the likelihood of their survival.

Back to Top

In so many ways....

Soil Enrichment - Leaf mulch returns nutrients back to the soil. Your lawn and gardens will require less fertilizer and other additives.

Water Conservation - Leaf mulch helps retain moisture in soils. When soil is covered with leaf mulch, the mulch lowers the soil’s exposure to sun and wind which reduces evaporation.

Save Money - By managing your leaves on site, you eliminate the costs of haulage and fuel to landfill, making you a more responsible earth inhabitant.

Insulation - Mulch acts like an insulating barrier from the heat in the summer, from the cold in the winter and from the wind all year round. Mulch prevents compaction and erosion of soils from wind and rain.

Weed Control- Leaf mulch can help prevent the growth of weeds. Add a thick layer (2 to 3 inches) to gardens to reduce the need for herbicides.

Back to Top

Leaf Compost is great for improving soil texture and fertility. So you should use compost to feed the roots of the plant inside the soil and mulch to spread atop the soil and improve soil structure. Also see the why you should compost section.

Back to Top

1. Convince your neighbours on your street. (Use the convince me sheet – its fun)

2. Set up the Leaf Stores on your street at proper intervals which is convenient for the Pourakarmika
(Find a sponsor or get each home owner to contribute and buy these)

3. Get the Pourakarmika involved. Explain to them what you are doing and why.

4. Stress on the fact that it will make their work easier – with the Leaf Store system all they have to do is sweep, put in bin and move.
Its better than what they do currently which is sweep, put in cart, when cart full walk all the way to the collection truck and come back to sweep the rest of the leaves again. (with the green bins its even more of a drudge, since the bins get filled up very fast)

5. Employ/volunteer a person to manage the composters. (Make sure you keep plastic out of the composters).

6. If you tell the Pourakarmika that you will pay them something extra for looking after the composters, it will be extra income for them.

7. The waste contractors who work for the corporation have no other option for dried leaves. They have to truck them away. Most home owners hate dried leaves and see them as a nuisance. So the city really does not know how to respond to dried leaves..

8. In case you have more leaves than can fit into the composters you have installed, find some empty plot nearby and layer them on the plot. The absent landlord will get a very fertile plot.

Remember leaves are seasonal, a large rain tree can shed upto 50 bags (Cement size bags) of leaves one season.

These can occupy a lot of volume, that’s why we feel a combination of leaves in leafstores at intermittent points of the street coupled with a large place like an empty plot or park space can save all the leaves in one area from reaching the landfill.

Back to Top

1. There are no spaces for the leafstores or parks nearby in your locality. (This is tough, then you must ensure that the government carts your area’s leaves to a park in a central area.)

2. The neighbours are enthusiastic at first and then begin complaining about all kinds of things. (Smile and tell them the compost they will get at the end will be worth the effort. Show them a tree and a leaf and tell them stories of how we are all connected, not that they will be convinced, but try)

3. Dogs and rats are attacking these leaf piles. (Keep piles free of non-vegetarian waste in case you are adding wet waste to hasten decomposition. And do not put food waste into the bamboo stores, the terracotta stores are rat proof, but large Dogs can knock the lid down)

Back to Top

You need a good porous and large bin to store leaves to make mulch or compost. Our products are ideally suited to do this and also enhance the aesthetics of the landscape. They blend beautifully into the landscape and are not an eyesore.

Also in our country if you put anything of value out in the streets there is a fear that it will be stolen. The Bamboo basket once full, is of too little commercial value for anyone to pick up. The Terracotta Leave it Pot is too heavy to carry off and has no resale value.

So use these under Every Tree and watch the ground, tree, squirrels, butterflies, ants, rats, lizards, birds all smile.

Back to Top

When you drive outside the city, you must have noticed how neatly the farmers stack fallen logs, coconut fronds, coconut frond stems, old coconut shells, hay etc.
In our cities the fallen branches, fronds and shells are all great fuel for construction labourers or other people who can use it as fuel to cook their evening meal. These if collected and stored in one space on a street for people to use will be the best use of this resource instead of sending it to landfill.

The Street Fuel Center – a service to help people eat. Think of some corporate bold enough to sponsor this and of course a municipal commissioner forward thinking enough to see all material as a resource and nothing as waste in a city.