Now that we’ve had our first good freeze of the season, we know the leaves on our trees will soon begin to fall, if they haven’t already. Last weekend, my wife and I took a drive down to Talimena State Part in search of fall foliage. We couldn’t decide if we were too early or too late since a lot of the leaves were brown. Either way, we had a great time taking in part of the countryside that non-Oklahomans likely would never imagine exists in Oklahoma. I mean, let’s face it. We have a desert in one part of the state, the flatlands, and then we transition into rolling hills and what we call mountains. Calling them mountains likely seems kind of presumptuous to Coloradans, but hey, they are mountains to us, but I digress.

Now that the cooler temperatures are seemingly here to stay, we have some decisions to make concerning those falling leaves. On one hand, most of our neighbors will be out there with leaf blowers and rakes bagging up their leaves to be hauled off with their trash. But trash implies something without value and those leaves are actually very valuable for our personal landscapes.

In a class I teach on soil nutrient management, I remind the participants that no one fertilizes the forest or rakes up the leaves. It takes care of itself. Now granted, this seems like kind of an obvious statement, but let’s dig a little deeper into what is going on.

First of all, on average, those leaves falling from the trees contain about 1% nitrogen. This is about the same amount of nitrogen found in composted manure. Leaves also contain potassium, phosphorus, calcium, sulfur, magnesium, boron, manganese, iron, chloride, copper, sodium, and zinc. So, as these leaves decompose, they are adding nutrients back into the soil.

In addition, one of the areas where the soil in our gardens typically falls short is in organic matter. Organic matter is anything that used to be alive. Organic matter is quite beneficial to our soil. For example, the majority of the “critters” that live in our soil live by feeding off organic matter. These critters would include worms and a variety of healthy fungi such as mycorrhizae. Research is showing the importance of mycorrhizae in facilitating the nutrient exchange between the soil and our plants. Bottom line, organic matter helps with our soil health in a variety of ways.

So, if you are bagging and hauling off your leaves, you are throwing away a good source of organic matter and nutrients. Here’s an alternative.

Rather than all that blowing, raking, and bagging, consider mowing those leaves back into the soil. When we mow those leaves with a mulching mower, the leaves essentially disappear as they begin the process of decomposition.

When I tell people this, it’s not unusual for people to suggest they have too many leaves to do that. My pushback is that in a previous home, our yard had 75 trees, mostly oaks and I was able to successfully mow the leaves into oblivion each year. The photo shows a before and after mowing of a leaf covered lawn.

Another benefit to this strategy is that it takes a lot less time to mow the leaves than to bag them. Yes, you will likely need to add 2 to 3 more mowings of your lawn for the year, but in my book, that’s a lot better that the hours spent raking, bagging, and dragging those bags to the curb.

If you have trees, you will also likely have leaves along the curb, on the driveway, and on the patio. A great strategy for these leaves is to mulch them, place them in plastic bags, and use them for next year’s garden mulch. I did this for many years. I would usually end up with 15 to 20 bags of mulched leaves overwintering to be available to use for garden mulch in the spring. Not only does that help save a little money to spend on other things, but these mulched leaves will also add nutrients and organic matter to the garden during the growing season.

To mulch these leaves, you can use your lawn mower. Just pile them up on the driveway and let the mower chop them up. If you really want to do this right, there are leaf munchers available for this purpose. When I purchased our leaf mulcher, it was about $100. Last time I looked, they are about $150 now. Yes, this is a bit of an investment, but payback would be complete after a couple of years of not having to purchase garden mulch.

No matter your strategy, re-purposing those leaves into your landscape can pay benefits for years to come. See you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Tom Ingram