Dry leaves are a naturally occurring organic material. For a gardener, it can be the best natural compost. If you’ve never tried this before, you may be wondering how to go about it. So, here I am going to explain how to make organic fertilizer from dry and dead leaves. The process is very easy, so let’s start;
The first step is to collect the leaves before they blow away and someone else gets them. On a sunny day, dead leaves become very light to move. So, you can scrape them into a heap using a rake or using a lawn mower that picks up and collects. This will chop the leaves as you collect. Then when you’ve harvested, one way or another, you can do this:
Steps to make organic fertilizer from leaves:
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You should start making compost with dead and dry leaves in a bin, heap or compost tumbler, a decent tumbler makes turning easier.
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Store them in big bags, be aware that they must be away from the water or humidity in storage.
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Now add Nitrate material to balance the high level of carbon in dry leaves. This would also include kitchen waste and lawn clippings.
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Mix the leaves with the Nitrate material by building in alternating layers of it. Keep the ratio of leaves to nitrates of about 5:1.
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Now sprinkle some hydrated lime on top of the Nitrate material to lessen the acidity level and smells too.
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For increasing the speed of this process, turn over the heap or use aerator probes in a bin.
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If the composting material looks dry, add some amount of water as compost needs to be moist for the good output.
One more thing you should know is that rotting down leaves can take time depending on how you go about it. The way you do it you will find that apart from the leaves, two other important ingredients are- water and air. The air is available all around us and for the water, we can use dish-washer water or washing machine water as it’s a waste to use clean water.
Therefore, by reusing these dry leaves we can create quality compost that can be used to help improve soils. This is also necessary for the environmental perspective as you are doing the best thing for your plants and at the same time you are not filling up landfill space.
Try to use Green Compost as far as possible to keep Environment Clean!
