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Disposing of leaves can be costly if you have them hauled away, or not great for the environment if you are one to burn them.

You're going to think I'm crazy when I say, DON'T get rid of those piles of fallen leaves! Leaves offer a valuable and free source of nutrients for your soil. The best way to use them is to make what we call leaf mold.

Leaf mold is sort of like compost. The difference is that with compost, the leaves are very well decomposed, with leaf mold the leaves are only partially decomposed, which makes it an excellent for mulching.

Making leaf mold is really a relatively easy, painless process. Mother nature does it all the time.

Start by piling up the leaves. You'll want to put them in a place where they can sit for awhile. Not on the grass, unless you want to kill off some of your lawn. Now, wait for them to decompose.

Okay, okay, if you want to speed it up, you can run the leaves through a branch chopper, or go over them with your lawn mower. If you are worried about containing your leaf mold, you can keep it contained in a ring of chicken wire or other material that allows for plenty of air circulation. (So black plastic is not a good option.) Just make sure and use something that breathes.

That's the key to good decomposition. When the leaf pile starts to shrink, you will know the leaves are decomposing nicely. Now, the nice thing is, you don't have to wait until the leaves resemble loam in order to use. When the leaves have broken down into somewhat smaller parts, then you can mulch with them, and by the way, they will continue to break down and enrich your soil quite nicely.

I cannot stress this enough - remove all weeds from the soil first, a good thick mulch of leaf mold will deter further weed starts. It's a good idea to keep your mulch layer at no more than 3-4 inches deep.

Uses for leaf mold:

As a soil conditioner, mix with poor soil to improve the overall quality. The coarse organic texture of leaf mold makes it easier for roots to grow by creating air spaces in the soil, improves the soil's ability to absorb and hold moisture, provides food for those desirable earthworms, and creates active microbes, improving soil fertility (yes, you do want those.)

As an organic mulch, leaf mold protects the soil beneath, keeping it from becoming compacted ,improves moisture retention while decreasing evaporation, and as I said before, eventually breaks down, enriching the soil.

Now wasn't that easy? It probably took less work than delivering the leaves to the trash collector. Imagine how nice your soil will be after you have repeated this ritual year after year! Even better, imagine how much money you will save by not only hanging on to your leaves, but by creating your very own soil amendment.

Learn more about this author, Francy Bozarth.
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