I know, off topic but I do get good advice from this group. I will take the
mud slinging,,, hope it is mixed in with your regular good information.


I have a back yard garden, I live in Southern Ontario Canada. I roto till it
and we grow vegetables like tomato, peppers,

My friends were telling me I should mix in some leaves, my garden is about
20 feet by 20 feet.

I collected about 50 big bags of grinded up leaves and roto tilled them all
into my garden. Very light and fluffy now and soft and full of broken down
leaves, mostly Maple Leafs and some other varieties.

My question is what should I do? Should I mix in manuer? or furtalizer?
Should I do something with this mixture now? Will it be ok on its own after
a few years ? will these leaves breakdown on their own? should I put more
leaves in? I think 50 bags is a lot.

Any advice or tips is much appreciated. Thank you 73s

On 11/30/2011 3:10 PM, Tuuk wrote:
I know, off topic but I do get good advice from this group. I will take
the mud slinging,,, hope it is mixed in with your regular good information.


I have a back yard garden, I live in Southern Ontario Canada. I roto
till it and we grow vegetables like tomato, peppers,

My friends were telling me I should mix in some leaves, my garden is
about 20 feet by 20 feet.

I collected about 50 big bags of grinded up leaves and roto tilled them
all into my garden. Very light and fluffy now and soft and full of
broken down leaves, mostly Maple Leafs and some other varieties.

My question is what should I do? Should I mix in manuer? or furtalizer?
Should I do something with this mixture now? Will it be ok on its own
after a few years ? will these leaves breakdown on their own? should I
put more leaves in? I think 50 bags is a lot.

Any advice or tips is much appreciated. Thank you 73s

Check with your local county extension agent.

" Tuuk" wrote in
:

I know, off topic but I do get good advice from this group. I will
take the mud slinging,,, hope it is mixed in with your regular good
information.


I have a back yard garden, I live in Southern Ontario Canada. I roto
till it and we grow vegetables like tomato, peppers,

My friends were telling me I should mix in some leaves, my garden is
about 20 feet by 20 feet.

I collected about 50 big bags of grinded up leaves and roto tilled
them all into my garden. Very light and fluffy now and soft and full
of broken down leaves, mostly Maple Leafs and some other varieties.

My question is what should I do? Should I mix in manuer? or
furtalizer? Should I do something with this mixture now? Will it be ok
on its own after a few years ? will these leaves breakdown on their
own? should I put more leaves in? I think 50 bags is a lot.

Any advice or tips is much appreciated. Thank you 73s



You might want to check with the good folks over at
rec.gardens.edible.
What I do is to leave the leaves on the garden untilled
as mulch. In the spring I will roto-till them in.
Let them sit for a few weeks, then test the soil to
see if any amendments are needed.

" Tuuk" wrote in message
...
I know, off topic but I do get good advice from this group. I will take the
mud slinging,,, hope it is mixed in with your regular good information.


I have a back yard garden, I live in Southern Ontario Canada. I roto till
it and we grow vegetables like tomato, peppers,

My friends were telling me I should mix in some leaves, my garden is about
20 feet by 20 feet.

I collected about 50 big bags of grinded up leaves and roto tilled them
all into my garden. Very light and fluffy now and soft and full of broken
down leaves, mostly Maple Leafs and some other varieties.

My question is what should I do? Should I mix in manuer? or furtalizer?
Should I do something with this mixture now? Will it be ok on its own
after a few years ? will these leaves breakdown on their own? should I put
more leaves in? I think 50 bags is a lot.

Any advice or tips is much appreciated. Thank you 73s



Compost. It's one of the best "soil amendments" you can have. A composter
can be built for a few dollars but you have to attend to it with moisture,
aeration and/or tumbling. Google for "homemade composter" and see what
others have built. Properly composted material will resemble ashes or dirt,
depending on the texture of your source plants.

The leaves will eventually break down on their own and sort of
"self-compost" but you can speed the process with a little work. Mix in the
compost and it replaces some fertilizers.

Garden centers all sell soil test kits. The results of a test will suggest
whether you need supplimental fertilizers.

Manure can be acidic and may do more harm than good. If you compost it,
too, it will be less acidic.

Sal

On 11/30/2011 3:10 PM, Tuuk wrote:
I know, off topic but I do get good advice from this group. I will take
the mud slinging,,, hope it is mixed in with your regular good information.


I have a back yard garden, I live in Southern Ontario Canada. I roto
till it and we grow vegetables like tomato, peppers,

My friends were telling me I should mix in some leaves, my garden is
about 20 feet by 20 feet.

I collected about 50 big bags of grinded up leaves and roto tilled them
all into my garden. Very light and fluffy now and soft and full of
broken down leaves, mostly Maple Leafs and some other varieties.

My question is what should I do? Should I mix in manuer? or furtalizer?
Should I do something with this mixture now? Will it be ok on its own
after a few years ? will these leaves breakdown on their own? should I
put more leaves in? I think 50 bags is a lot.

Any advice or tips is much appreciated. Thank you 73s



As one other poster suggested, check with your local agri-support folks.
I'm from northern NY, FN24, and moved straight west to MN, EN34. When
you are this far north you need to know exactly what climate range you
are in, and then assume it's a half point to a point worse. Then your
plants will usually survive.

You are probably a fraction of a climate zone north of me unless you are
tucked in between the ends of Erie and Ontario.

73
tom
K0TAR

On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 08:43:31 -0500, Tuuk wrote:

Yes, thanks all hams, yes, excellent advice.

I don't want to put in a composting pile as I feel that might attract a
lot of mice or animals as my neighbors have told me. I know the pile of
leaves gets warm in the middle. One neighbor told me about nitrogen, my
situation required nitrogen and the region here has a byproduct from our
waste and they call it bio wastes and the farmers line up apparently for
it. He said he can give me a couple pails but he says it is very potent
or almost 95% nitrogen. And he says the ministry of environment wants to
know about it and fill out a bunch of forms.
I like the idea of a composter, easy to do, looks managable. Thanks
again hams for the great advice. I know it is off topic but as I said, I
get a lot of good advice from this group, the gardening groups are not
active or attached to my news server. Much appreciated.

73s and happy holidays






"Ozric Terminator" wrote in message
...
Tuuk wrote:


My question is what should I do? Should I mix in manuer? or
furtalizer? Should I do something with this mixture now? Will it be ok
on its own after a few years ? will these leaves breakdown on their
own? should I put
more leaves in? I think 50 bags is a lot.

Any advice or tips is much appreciated. Thank you 73s

The breakdown of leaves is a dfferent process than that of making
compost and takes a lot longer. You should not add leaves to you soil
but in time the worms will eat it all up.

Use the leaves to make leaf ulch which you can then use on the surface,
see
http://www.hereandthere.org/making-m...om-leaves.html

Turn it when it starts to get warm or you may end up with an ash pile.
Any green waste (no sticks) will feed it. I used neighbors' lawn
trimmings and leaves. I never needed any extra boosters. Only critters
you get is earthworms. Their poop is the fertilizer. I think the nitrate
may inhibit earthworms. Earthworm casting is the fertilizer you get from
a succesful compost situation. Build in on the ground.