Question

Which is weirder: To steal bagged leaves from somebody's front yard, or to knock on somebody's door and ask them if you can take the bagged leaves from their front yard?

I'm on a never-ending quest to add all kinds of organic matter and nutrients to my garden soil, to the extent that I may need professional help. So far that has included organic dairy compost, Com-til from the local wastewater treatment plant, hay, straw, ashes, charcoal, cardboard, newspaper, shredded paper, goat/donkey/chicken manure and bedding, garden crop residue, wood chips, dried molasses, and now, leaves.

You see, we don't have any mature trees on our property. We have a few beech trees and a thicket of willows growing around the edge of the pond, but as this was cropland just a few years ago, most of the trees are the ones I've planted, and few are taller than me.

So while I was in town running some errands, I snagged some bags of leaves. (I asked, in case you're wondering. I didn't want some nice old lady calling in my license plates to Circleville's Finest.)

A secondary benefit to this particular facet of my little organic matter problem (I can quit whenever I want) was that my kids, for once in their lives, got to play in a big pile of leaves.




The chickens didn't really need to be introduced to the scratching potential of the leaf pile, but e5 was more than happy to show them around anyway.

Six garbage bags of leaves in a big pile, and within an hour our feathered friends had spread them in a nice even layer across the whole garden expansion area.

Hello, my name is e4, and I'm an organic matter addict.

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