Fall is always a welcome relief from the hot summer season. But this season also comes with another blessing (or problem if you think so), which is fall leaves. The hot summer sun works on trees, forcing them to shed their leaves. Raking these leaves and collecting them to be recycled by your local waste management facility is a familiar fall ritual for many. Others may choose to bury the leaves in a landfill.

Before you collect leaves for recycling or disposal, consider that your garden can benefit from these leaves. Instead of using tools such as these from HomeMakerGuide to help collect leaves for recycling or burial in a landfill, you can use the leaves to improve your garden soil. Below are some creative ways to use fall lives in your garden like a pro.

Create mulch for your roses

If you have a rose garden, your roses can benefit from the fall leaves in several ways. Roses require protection from extreme weather, such as cold or heat. Therefore, you can use the fall leaves to provide much-needed protection. All you have to do is to shred the greenery and use them as organic mulch for your rose garden.

You will need the right garden tool use to spread the shredded leaves on the base of the roses up to about three inches. During hot weather or summer, the mulch will help the soil to retain its moisture. In winter, the leaves will protect the plant roots from excess cold.

Make a new garden

When you have abundant greenery in your garden and home, you may be tempted to trash or burn some of it. However, you can use it to make a new garden. Layer gardening involves piling up the organic matter on top of the soil and allowing it to break down before you plant your garden. Fall leaves make excellent composting material; you can alternate them with kitchen scraps or manure to improve the quality of your new garden.

Add leaf mold to your garden soil

Whether you keep a garden for pleasure or commercial purposes, you need to improve the soil quality and structure. Because leaves are readily available during fall, you can use them to make leaf molds for your garden soil. Leaf molds are compost-like materials that form when you allow the greenery to decompose on their own. The molds are what make the forest develop an earthly smell.

Although your garden soil may not derive many nutrients from the leaf mold, these organic materials will improve the soil structure and promote your organic farming project.

Make a compost pile

Fall leaves are excellent material for your compost pile. They are rich in “brown’’ and essential carbon material. For best results, you should shred the leaves before adding them to the compost pile.

Even better, using underground worm compost bins is an efficient and discreet way to create nutrient-rich compost right in your own backyard, using the leaves from your fall cleanup. Worms break down organic matter such as food scraps and shredded leaves, and the resulting castings are a great fertilizer for your garden. You can alternate the shredded leaves with green materials such as fruits and vegetable scraps while making the pile and the worms will help convert these materials to usable compost even faster than using green and brown material alone. The pile should be ready by the next planting season.

You can learn how to start composting with a few simple steps and see the benefits for yourself. Your plants will thank you for the added nutrients and you'll be doing your part for the environment by reducing the amount of waste going to landfills.

Instead of burning or trashing fall greenery, you can use them in your garden for less synthetic fertilizer. Leaves are rich in organic matter and can be useful in several ways, including those mentioned above.

Please comment below and let us know other ways you can use fall greenery.

About the Author:

Archie Adams was a builder for more than 40 years. Mainly after his retirement he has enthusiastically worked in his garden and now writes for the blog homemakerguide.com to keep himself occupied. Archie’s many years of experience can get you the right tool reviews whether it is a drill, welding machine, or other power tool. An impressive fact to note about him is that almost everything in his house is made by his hands and thus a representation of his skills.