Use that mountain of leaves to enrich, protect garden

Care to take a guess of how much the leaves weigh that Yakima residents send to the Terrace Heights Landfill each fall? A hundred tons? Or maybe five times that amount?

Actually, 224 tons of leaves were collected last year, and at least that amount will be sent to the landfill this fall.

And that begs the question: What happens to all of those millions of leaves sent to the landfill? No, they don't bury them in the landfill -- our landfill is already bursting at the seams with all kinds of other refuse. No, they don't mix them with yard waste collected during the growing season to be composted. And no, they don't compost them separately.

So what does happens after you rake your leaves, bag them in those free biodegradable leaf bags to be picked up by the city's crews?

The answer is what Ted Dufrey does with them. He picks up all of the leaves at the landfill after they have been shredded and trucks them to his Natural Selection Farms near Sunnyside to be composted.

To get the leaves ready for composting, Dufrey mixes them in the right ratio of greens to browns necessary for the composting process to work. For green material, he uses hop yard waste, apple pomace, shredded orchard prunings and waste materials from commercial fish processing. This mixture is laid out into long windrows, which must be turned periodically to add oxygen needed for the piles to continue composting. From raw materials to mature compost takes anywhere from six to 10 weeks.

Natural Selection Farms (509-837-3501) sells its compost by bulk only, mainly to farmers. Gardeners, however, can purchase compost by the yard on site.

Thanks to Dufrey's composting business, Yakima County is saved the expense of dealing with a humungous volume of leaves each fall. In return, Dufrey has created a thriving business, and farmers and gardeners have a source of rich compost to improve their soil and crops at a reasonable price.

Many of us depend on lugging bags of fertilizer and compost home from garden centers to enrich our soil. Why not save some of your leaves this fall to make your own compost now and during the next growing season? And there are other ways you can use autumn leaves to better your gardening.

Even if you have a compost pile, and I hope you have, you will need lots of browns to go with the green materials you use for composting during the next year. While there is usually a plentiful supply of green material once spring is well under way, it's the brown materials that supply carbon that will be in short supply. Now is the time to store some of those leaves that are littering your lawn.

Start by running over the leaves several times with your lawnmower until they are well shredded. Then pack them tightly into black plastic leaf bags. Cover your bags with a tarp to keep sunlight from decomposing and shattering the bags over winter.

But leaves have more uses in gardening than just for composting.

* First, scatter some of your fall leaves until they cover the lawn an inch or 2 deep. Then mow over them until they disappear into the turf. While they are relatively low in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, leaves contain micronutrients that grass needs.

* Winter mulching of perennial and flowerbeds is a second use. By applying a 3- or 4-inch layer of shredded leaves over your perennial beds, you will protect the roots from being damaged or killed by freezing during a severe winter. Do this task after the soil has begun to freeze.

Winter mulch is especially important for young perennials planted this fall. Unprotected, they can be heaved out of the ground by alternate freezing and thawing during winter. Leave the mulch on your perennial beds next spring and summer for earthworms, bacteria and fungi to continue doing their welcome work of recycling the nutrients.

* Applying shredded leaves this fall in your vegetable garden is a third use of the leaves that you rescue from being sent to the landfill. Each fall, I use partly decomposed leaves saved from previous years and till them into the top 6 inches of my raised beds. Then I top off the beds with a generous layer of raw shredded leaves that warms the soil enough to keep earthworms, fungi and bacteria working overtime.

During a mild spell in March, I spade under the blanket of shredded leaves. By the time I begin planting in late April or May, there is little evidence that leaves were ever added to my soil.

* But I'm not finished using shredded leaves even when summer arrives. By adding shredded leaves to replace the shrinking volume of mulch on flowerbeds and vegetable beds throughout the gardening season, weeds are smothered, soil temperatures are moderated, and the soil retains moisture longer. As macro-organisms and microorganisms continue to do their work, my soil is not only enriched but its structure becomes vastly improved.

Instead of treating your autumn leaves like trash to be discarded of, change your trash to treasure by using it in your gardening. Come to think of it, if you use some of your leaves like I do, you will have real treasure buried in your garden.

* Freelance gardening columnist Jim McLain can be reached at 509-697-6112 or ongardening@compwrx.com.

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