Leaves

Leaves

Leaves and other dead plant materials are so valuable to my way of seeing things. If the average citizen knew what I know about what can be done with this organic matter, there'd be none of it going to the landfill. So let's just start with leaves and all the good things these cast off parts of trees can yield when properly managed.

There are so many ways of looking at the dead leaves that fall off trees in the fall. Just listing will help us figure what best to do with them. One purpose of the leaves while they are still on the plant is to convert the sun's light and carbon dioxide into energy for the plant. Traditional gardeners and farmers concentrate on the big three of plant nutrients - nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. That's what the npk percentages refer to. Lost in the shuffle over the years with technological developments has been that there are other nutrients valuable for plant growth and health (and the health of those eating the plants) - carbon, magnesium, iron, zinc, copper, and other so-called 'trace minerals' which are ultimately just as important as the big three. Leaves have these trace minerals.

The leaves fall off and break down to feed nutrients to the soil for the roots to absorb. But it's not that simple. It turns out there are microbes that have to be present for the roots to uptake the plant's food. Molds, bacteria, single-celled organisms, and a myriad of larger life forms swirl around in an enormously complex community in a healthy soil. A plant will grow in a soil that doesn't have much of a soil community, but it won't do very well.

When a plant dies it's seed is the only part still alive. Aside from the seed the rest of the plant has both nitrogen and carbon. As a dead plant dries out it loses its nitrogen to the air. So leaf fall is for the most part carbon once it dries out, but it also has trace minerals. In the short-sighted gardening/farming style that developed after the invention of synthetic fertilizers, waste carbonaceous organic matter was often just burned off to get it out of the way. That loss of organic matter and life from the soil was a short-circuiting of the natural cycling of carbon back to the soil. People still using synthetic fertilizers today don't know this.

Some look at leaves as messy. Some enjoy the smell as they are decayed by those precious molds and bacteria that synthesize enzymes to break them down and help transfer their nutrients into the roots of the plants. Leave those leaves on the ground and next year's trees and other plants will do better. The Amish build up their soil by valuing their dry plant matter - whether it's leaves, hay, or whatever - and labor to return it to the soil. I've read some American Indians view leaves as being full of energy, and so they treasure it. Scientists such as Paul Stamets use "waste" organic matter - leaves, cardboard, newspaper, grass clippings, etc. - inoculated with mushrooms, other fungi, and bacteria - to clean up polluted areas on land and in water. A mulch or compost pile is habitat for the rich diversity of life so vital to any healthy garden - such as insect pollinators.

I think an enterprising group of young people could get ahead forming a cooperative venture to transform this currently wasted resource into substrate (soil) to grow whatever they thought valuable to grow, in whatever situation - gardens, greenhouses, aquaponics set-ups, potted plants - and possibly even value-adding their products by turning them into e.g. herb vinegars - and in the process teach themselves skills in demand in various fields from landscaping to biotech.