Well me bucko’s — neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of day will stay this courier from the swift completion his appointed round. And so it was slickers and wellies and down to the garage we went and off to the lottie. It was hosing rain like I don’t know what when we drove up and out of the garage. When we got to the allotment complex, it was still raining, but mercifully less hard. We loaded up the little cart and headed off to outr lottie. I paused here for the Bride’s pic. There are eleven bin liners ful of autumnal goodness on that cart. Once there we immediately got stuck-in...I brought the full sacks and my Bride began dumping them inyo the compost bin. At one point it was full but there were stoill five bin liners to go. There was nothing for it but to climb up on top and stomp it down a bit. The remaining five would now fit in. Here is our lovely pile of leaves ready to turn into leaf mould. We headed back to the auto and were away. The thought of tea and bikkies drew us along like a vacuum.
How I envy you those lovely leaves to become leaf mould! I rake up, dump on raised beds and then we till in the leaves in late winter, early spring. We never have enough leaves, and although folks in town leave bags of grass clippings/ leaves at the curb, I am reluctant to pick them up and take them home. One never knows what insecticides, herbicides have been used. Hope you enjoyed your tea and biscuits after you dried off!
Autumn Leaves? Cue for a song. I like to play this. I got the neighbourhood kids to sing the second chorus. (not really, my piano can sing). https://app.box.com/s/uiel2oizrrz6988rr6z02qvqdr1gvi4t
Jane—i have left ‘em and dug them in as ell. That worked well for me, but then one day I made the decision to invest in min-tilling...that means that I no longer turn my soil. You know, a number of years ago, I was biking down a neighbourhood street and I came upon an elderly lady struggl8ng with raking leaves and bagging them for the municipal leaf pick-up. I stopped and helped her, there were loads of black bin liners piled-up along the curb in front of her house. She was so upset at the work and the mountain of bags on the sidewalk. Out of nowhere I offered to return and take away what I could. She was dumbstruck and I couldn’t believe that I had offered it myself. She agreed to let me have them and my Bride and I returned a day later.and my leaf mould infatuation began. I hear what you are saying about poison and grass seeds and so forth. Luckily her leaves came off a patio in front of her dwelling, but the reasons that you outlined would hold me back from taking from a different situation. The tea and bikkies were a just and delicious reward for our work. Riley— that is exactly the song I had in mind when I thought up a fitting title. It was my mother and father’s fav romantic song, as I recall...I always found it exceptionally sad. Ha,ha,ha. Yeah, It was not the only subject on which we disagreed.
Sjoerd, our Autumn leaves are blown across the road, run over by the mulching mower, as is the straw we collect, and added to the soil. The flower at the end of the little bridge to the lottie, what is it, if you know? I ask because I have seen it growing here in Michigan, USA.
its called "stonecrop" here. there are varieties of it but this is just the common one we mostly find.
I am not sure I agree that plant is the joe pye family. it is a totally different leaf structure. the one in the photo you have is a thick spongy rounded leaf and joe pye weed is an elongated pointed thin leaf not a succulent type leaf at all. here is joe pye weed. if you look closely at the leaf it is thin elliptical and a bit serratedhttps://www.thespruce.com/joe-pye-weed-eupatorium-purpureum-1402848
The plant in the piccy shown is the eupatorium alba. I think that this plant may genetically differ from Joe Pye and the eupatorium purpurea in the world of classification as there have apparently been changes recently. Still these plants are in the family Asteraceae. It is all a bit of hair- splitting isn’t it.
While one can buy those plants in garden centre’s, they seed out extremely easily. I get them in the lottie every year. I just let them bloom then lift the plant, remove the head and compost the rest.
