A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 burnings

We burn leaves (lots of magnolia leaves), and branches from trees around here on a regular basis. Anyone know if that is good for compost piles? Would that be beneficial or harmful to plants/flowers?

Burning is about as far from composting as you can get. You are burning what is potentially compost. The good stuff in it is being spewed out into the atmosphere. Creating more pollution. Why not compost the leaves and branches? I don't get it...

Its not as beneficial as it would be to compost that yard waste. A lot less harmful to the environment as well.

I VOTE

Magnolia leaves and branches do take much longer to decompose than other things but if you made a long term compost pile it would be really good. And that way you would have brown during the summer when everyone else is out of it and grousing about having to shred papper to keep their compost balanced lol. Also because magnolia leaves take so long to compost I've heard that they can be used to keep invasive root running plants in their place. Just dig a 8 to 12 inch trench around the aggressor and put in the magnolia leaves. For some reason the roots don't like to cross that. Of course this maybe more in the realm of folk lore but if you have some mint or strawberries maybe it is worth a try?

I havent burned anything in my life till we moved here in the country. Everyone here does it or else you will have a ton of stuff from your place that would just sit there. I know it is not good for the environment, I would prefer composting and going to try it, but there are soooo many magnolia leaves -- it killed the grass in areas under the trees. I can rake today and by Wednesday -- about the same amount of leaves around, plus the wind brings in more leaves from the other trees around - yes, they are magnolia too.

Hi jh
Me neither! But, I stopped once I thought about the impact it has on the environment. Everyone here burns too - and burns compostable stuff too-drives me crazy. May be I should start a local compost education program

Do you have a local company you can rent dumpsters from? That's what people here do. Some people pay for trash pickup. Most people go in together, and end up paying less than $5 a month for trash removal. It works out pretty well for us, for those things you can't compost.

Anywho, I would suggest building a bin just for your magnolia leaves. Better yet, build a border around your magnolia trees (assuming you have some?) and keep some of the leaves in around the base of the tree to break down in place.

Yep leaf mulch for the plants that enjoy that. My dwarf evergreens require a leaf mulch over the cold months or they pout. Funny thing is with their sharp little needles they gather the leaves themselves if I don't get enough around them. Come spring they look just like a mound of composting leaves until I uncover them. It's kinda of fun to go looking for them come spring. Like an early game of hide and seek. They are a very slow growning ground cover so I never know where the new plants will be come spring.

I was posting about taking the excess leaves that I get this fall and stashing them in a big garbage bag and smooching them down and then stuffing more in there and storing it for the spring and summer when I won't have any leaves but will have loads of green grass clippings. I sweep up leaves from two mature poplars and one maple every day so your right when they start shedding they shed alot.

If you have marigolds and want to overwinter them in place you might try covering them completely with the leaves and keeping it that way until spring. I managed to overwinter some in Washington State doing that one year.

Nice thing about your leaves is they are so much heavier than mine that they will stay in place alittle better. My piles migrate unless I pile them up against something that keeps them from blowing away lol.

Actually I do have marigolds, that is a great idea about overwintering. Thanks for the tip.

They burn here too, even the farmers burn here. They burn off the wheat fields and the rice fields after they cut. This time of year the air here is horrible, it's really bad this year. We have the farmers spraying cotton with any and everything, plus now they are cutting other crops.

I do burn once in a while (if we have had a storm) if I have big tree limbs to get rid of then I burn. I'd love to have accesss to a chipper to run all my limbs through, that would be really nice and my yard could sure use the mulch.

But here the farmers nasty the air enough for every one, what single burning there are do not hold a candle to what the farmers put in the air.

here people have sinus and lung problems year round.

I was JUST thinking about that yesterday, and wondering what they co$t!

A lot of people here burn, too - I guess the way I look at it is, if I don't do it, it's one less person that's putting nasties in the air. If I tell 3 people about it and they stop burning, well, then I start a small revolution. To my chagrin, I noticed this week that someone in my town has started a compost heap - wonder where they got the idea

"Changing the world, one compost heap at a time"

I have a compost heap, and put almost everything in it. But if we get a store than the limbs are just too big and too many but I'd sure love to have them for mulch

There are contractors who will come and chip large limbs, usually up to about 12-14 inches diameter. If you buy a chipper, get minimum 5hp with a 2" chipper chute. You can buy 2nd hand for about 300 or 400 USD. Or new is about 1000 i guess. I have had one for about 3 years and it is so useful. I make my compost with it. Nothing is wasted. I need to get a contractor in soon to do some bigger stuff that needs removing. Also the woodchips are usually for salew too by these contactors. It's good stuff and usually reasonably cheap. Say $10 a cubic metre. Don't buy a small electric chipper, they are toys.

When I looked at the cost of renting a chipper I found that it was just as cheap to hire someone with a chipper to come and do the chipping for me. And I kept the chips lol.

I do burn sometimes, I like a little fire out back, we sit around it and toast marshmallows and I get some of the debris cleaned up. Then I put the ashes into the compost pile, I thought it was good to have ash in there too. I have burned a lot of leaves also, but you guys have just convinced me to keep them in the pile! Thank you.

I started the base of my 60ft bed
with unchopped leaves...
I wanted to garden, but not much $$$$ back
then, and we didn't even have a lawn mower
either, and we had to hand rake our entire
back 40 for 3 years.. *WHEW*
so, we started in several places, and worked
out, got an extra great base to it,
so for 3 years, kept piling it up.... and
when we finally got some $$$ up to do it,
we just put the landscaping timbers around
where we'd did the leaves,
and then loaded the dirt on top....

(remember though, that pile was 3 years old
or at least one season for the last pile on top
before I did anything with the dirt...
ANDDDDDDDDDDD, never planted anything until the following season.. *I like things decomposed
with that lasgna style gardening, before I plant in it, it can rob nitrogen from plants if you
do it toooo early while they are still breaking down.*)

Well I went out yesterday and busted my butt and started my compost pile -- you guys would be proud of me, I was going through our trash taking things out -- now my husband is totally convinced that I am crazy -- cuz I was going to call the family members around us and ask if they could go through their trash and donate to my pile.

Userjh160,
Uhhhhhh, noooooooo you're not crazy..
Everyone else who doesn't save all that
stuff to make "Black Gold" are the one's
that are CRAZY!!

When you get all done with your pile
and seeeeeeee that beautiful, dark, rich,
nutrious, loamy, organic, FREE.....oh, er, um..
guess I get carried away there when I
talk about compost...

But you'll be thanking your self, over and over
again, when it comes time to use it..
***I use most of it, sifted, when I do my seedlings, to extend the store bought seed starting mixes that I get, they're expensive as
all get out, but I still like using them, but
with the amount of seeds I start... I have to have something to stretch it all out..***

And you're not crazy to have the neighbors saving you stuf.. why not, if you know them and feel comfortable enough to ask them, then dooooooooo it!
I have my upstairs tenant do it, my mother who lives right next door, and a few here and there
I send down tomatoes too...
Whyyyyyyyyyy not!!!!

Cuts down on your garbage too..
Helps you keep your girlish *or boyish* figure
while you're out there getting exercise #1. walking there #2. dumping it in #3. turning the pile every so often #4. dumping it and sifting it
#5. using it on your garden..
Look at allllll that free excerise, they
charge at those exercise places...

Really, it can be a little bit of work,
but it is SOOOOOOOOOOOO WORTH IT.!!!

Weezie, how long ya been at that house? I couldn't imagine waiting 3 years! I admire your patience!

JH - welcome to the wonderful world of composting! Just wait till ya get that first steaming pile - it's SO exciting!

12 years.............

And patients comes from being POOR!!!!

That's half the reason my husband hates
my gardening.. Well, he doesn't hate my
gardening, it's just that he'd like to
do it right...and not this piddle here
and piddle there...
he'd like to be able to hire a landscaper
and come in and in one fell~swoop the job
be done...but noooooooo buckage!!!
so, hence the PATIENCE!!
I wanna garden, I can do it...even if it's
just a little bit, I am still diggin' in the
dirt!!!
But also remember, I garden in pots/containers too,
and I had a veggie garden already there
when I moved in.. so that took care of alot of
my urge to dig..
And he did make me a beautiful raised bed,
just the side of the house, not too big,
but the length of the South facing wall..
and had that alllllllll full with stuff..

Plus, the first years I was here, I
was pregnant and then had a C~section,
and with my first kid, that C~section
was tough...so, I wasn't in much of a moood
to bend down or over.. and with nursin'
and we were still up stairs, not overly crazy
about going up and down stairs.. I stayed
up the stairs alot..
*we were renovating the downstairs*

Boy, that's alot of info on a burning topic..

Landscaper? One fell swoop? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO how can I play and plan and move things if someone else comes in and makes it perfect. Where's the fun? Where's the exercise? Where's the experiments? Where's the learning new things and discovering things that you never knew?

If those rich people just knew what they were missing huh?

I keep telling him that....
I love to play in the dirt and
experiment...
And the smell of a beautiful day outside,
fresh cut grass, a nice breeze,
sunshine on my shoulders... and a dream
in my pocket...

I just get a bit wild in my projects and
experimenting and that's when he just :p

I burn the things that I don't want in the compost pile. Things like CCA treated lumber and painted boards, with nails in them.

I tore down an old house behind me and burned all of it. It had caught fire and was full of stuff I didn't want to compost. I hauled off the shingles, stuff I couldn't burn.

Your so lucky to have a fellow that loves you enough to put up with your "projects" right? My ex did a lot of head shaking while we were together. And I hadn't even found the garden back then. Lord only knows what he would have done with this enthusiasm lol.

huh? I don't understand why anyone would burn something in a compost pile.

And certainly not something as toxic as cca lumber.There is a very good reason why it was finally banned.

http://orgs.unca.edu/eqi/ArsenicCCA.htm