Speed Up the Decomposition of Leaf Compost Piles with a Grass/Nitrogen Clippings Core: One & Done!

This simple method will speed up the decomposition of your leaf piles or *any pile. Add a core of grass clippings to provide nitrogen and heat things up a bit. Making leaf mold or leaf compost is cold composting process. The addition of grass, 1x time when building the pile, speeds up the process.

*If it is an old pile of browns, remove about 1/2 of the material and drop in the green core and cover it.

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[thevirtualcockpit]

We use a similar method to create warm/hot beds in our greenhouse. Then we plant cool weather crops in trays that sit on top of the warm beds. We cover the plants with domes made from greenhouse panels. Keeps the plants happy and thriving even in snow!

[biblicalprepping]

i LOVE this simple compost pile design. I have a tumbler, which I love, and a rolling bucket I kick around the garden to make QUICK compost for mixing up some potting soil. But I have A TON of leaves and didn't know what to do with it! This is the perfect design. Just incorporated it into one corner of my garden yesterday and filled it 3/4 with leaves already! LOL I still have a TON of leaves to blow into the garden and will be tilling them in with some mulch we are making once our little chipper shredder arrives in November. THEN the garden can sit all winter. In the mean time, as this composter breaks down, i will keep adding leaves on top!!!

Thank you for this GREAT idea!!! I had just enough scrap fence left to make it. Will be hoping to add grass clippings over the month, too, and again in the spring. GREAT, helpful videos! - judith

[galsfarmworks]

Works like a charm. Heats up in just a few hours. In 48 hours mine was 148f. Awesome.

[lorrainedurgee]

Terrific video on leaf compost - 2024 - may

[RisherTNgarden]

Thanks so much for this quick direct info Gary! And videos always start up lots of comments that are also so helpful from the Gardening community! Thanks!

[jackiehorsley]

Sounds awesome Gary I'm definitely going to keep that in mind

[lifeinthepiedmontVirginia]

Thanks so much. Now have so many leaves here in VA.

[openhearts]

I use my mower with a bag to mulch up the leaves and the benefit is that grass is cut along with the leaves so it's premixed. Handy!
Thanks for sharing! Tis the season to build a compost pile. 😁

[BoycottYoutube]

I highly recommend adding a bag of course perlite to a leaf/grass compost pile. It helps reduce compaction and the resulting anaerobic stink. While you're at it, add a bag of composted chicken manure for some really good growing media. Just mix with some native soil because it will be too light and fluffy and won't hold enough water. That's just my 2 cents based on personal experience.

[contestwill]

nice video, and I really like that sweater too

[brianseybert]

Made a huge pile of leaf mold last year to only have it invaded by jumping worms (I'm in zone 5A). The worms die off in the winter but the cocoons survive. If you use and keep the leaf mold in your own garden, I guess it's no big deal. I used my uninfected leaf mold last year over peat as a seed starter and a major component in my potting mixes. I can't use the infected leaf mold because I give a way and sell seedlings in the spring and do not want to spread the jumping worms.
This year I am constructing a leaf mold bin that will not allow jumping worms access to the leaves (Shredded leaves are the preferred food of the jumping worms).
The cocoons will die off at temperatures above 104F. I did cook about 40 gallons of my finished screened leaf mold in my pellet grill for seed start and am running the rest through hot compost.
There are many areas of the US that have jumping worms, I suggest that people check with their local DNR to find out if jumping worms are in their area.
There are other ways to make leaf mold other than in wire bins. I used a plastic garbage can with holes drilled along the sides with a center PVC pipe with hole and a lid that worked as well as the wire bin. Not near the volume as a bin however.
Enjoy your videos.

[emilybh]

It would be cool if you could do a video one day on the anaerobic Korean Bokashi food composting method which I have found to be a great solution to problems created by indoor food waste storage bins attracting bugs and making a mess
(before the food goes out to the compost pile). This anaerobic method of compressing food wastes into a a 5 gal. bucket with a special lid that squeezes out the air and speeds up decomposition with used hops grains, *enables you to completely skip the step of adding your food wastes to your outdoor compost pile* and instead after you've filled a bucket with food and grains and waited two weeks to let it sit covered in the bucket, you can add it to your garden . (I keep a bucket I'm filling in the garage, although there is little smell and no bugs or worms.) In two more weeks, you can plant directly in and around where you added the Bokashi mixture in the garden. The Koreans and Japanese have evidently been doing this for hundreds of years.

[Johnston]

Will something like this be ok on really hot days? Like it wont start a fire?

[vickiereed]

Thank you Gary! I made my first leaf compost bin out of extra wood pallets that we had and filled it full of leaves! Now I’m going to have to build another bin so that I can make it with the grass in the middle or wait until the first pile collapses but there are soooo many leaves and I want to use them all! 😂
I say that one can never have too much compost! So off to make the second bin!
What about raking the leaves into big black trash bags and leaving them to break down?

[virginian]

I have 0 grass to add to my compost bins as I live in a mostly wooded area and no grass to cut and collect, and no neighbors to collect it from. However, we do have a lot of vegetable waste and a lot of coffee grounds I add to the leaves and it has been fantastic.

[BugRod]

thanks for the video, what is your opinion of adding coffee grounds to the pile?

[Cultivatinggratitude]

How can you speed the process using this method in zone b6 if you wanted to being that we are already in the cold climate and winter is approaching?

[titanart]

Gary, I Forget which video you shared your garden shoes in. Can you please post the video or the name of the garden shoes you wear? I’m interested in buying them

[SuperStruct]

I wonder if there could be a draft video on your seed lineup for the next year, like major contenders that you want to plant get picked first... Just a fun video idea. Like purple top turnips are a huge player, I really want to draft those this year. Like an