If you live in a city like New York where the Leaf Collection Program was canceled due to the lack of city funds, then you may have wondered about various ways to dispose of your bagged instead of sending them out with the regular trash where they end up taking valuable space in the landfill. Depending on the type of trees and the condition of the trees, various areas may experience leaf falling as early as middle to late summer; and with autumn approaching in September, it may be prudent to start planning now on ways to recycle your leaves before that time comes.

In the beginning years of the creation of our community garden in Brooklyn New York, our members established a Leaf Containment Center which was just a space cordoned off with mesh to hold leaves which we intended to collect and save for using in the compost bin as one of the carbon sources, an important component in compost which provides energy to the microbes and worms breaking down the organic waste. The block where our Community Garden is located is full of mostly London Plane trees which not only shed bark, but their leaves at an furious pace starting in mid to late summer. When we first started our compost bin, it was either late spring or summer of a season and not yet aware of the amount of leaves the block generated, we’d hunt for leaves at local parks and we’d also ask our neighbors for their bag fulls. I would multi – task by taking a bag with me on my runs in the park. At the end of my runs, I’d fill fill my bag with leaves and carry home with me to refill and save in the Leaf Containment Center . As summer wore on that season, we realized that the leaves on our block were plenty and we were able to collect and store them without having to gather at the park or go around asking. As a result, our Leaf Containment Center grew and to continue in it’s growth, we began to accept and ask neighbors to drop their leaves off to the Garden.

The brown leaves serve multiple purposes in the gardening processes, so in saving them, the environment is benefits significantly. Adding leaves to the compost gives energy to the bacteria in the compost (hot piles which are mixed with “green” nitrogen sources) pile, allowing for the creation of rich organic soil and fertilizer. Even if you are not adding the leaves to a bin in which a “fast” pile of compost if brewing, allowing the leaves to sit in a pile and decompose over time in a “slow” pile will generate a rich compost over a matter of time. So if you don’t have the time or want to start a compost bin/pile, keeping your leaves in area to decompose slowly will eventually create a rich soil gradully and will keep the leaves out of plastic bags and out of the landfill.

Another garden member got creative and started using the plentiful supply of leaves we have in the Leaf Containment Center as a mulch to preserve moisture and water in her planting bed. As this member demonstrated, crushed leaves can be used the same way as wood chips, spread over the top layer of the soil at the base of your plants, holding water in and preventing evaporation from drying out the earth.

On a recent garden work day, we discovered yet another use for the leaves. Some members were eager to do away with a pile of bagged leaves we’d been waiting to add to the Leaf Containment Center (it was full to the brim due to tons of donations over the previous summer and fall seasons and through our own collections). After some thought we decided to use the leaves as an underlying layer in a bird habitat we were creating. To create the habitat, we started off with rocks as the bottom layer to create height. Over the rocks we emptied the bags of leaves which would eventually be topped off with layers of soil where bird and butterfly attracting foliage would be planted. Being very eco-conscious, we were careful in opening the bags of leaves in an attempt to preserve and reuse as many bags as we could. Using the leaves as an underlying layer in the habitat allowed us to keep 20 – 30 plastic bag fulls of leaves out of the landfill. These leaves now have a second life, incarnated as fertilizer in the underlying layer of the habitat.

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