What a treasure. As for pix:

1. Open a Photobucket or other pix sharing account. Its free.
2. Download your pix there. 800x600 (or there abouts) is a good size. Not too big, not too small. You select the size B-4 downloading or resize them later.
3.Copy the HTML code and paste it into your post. When you preview your post, you'll see the pix.

tj

You. Have. GOT. To. BE. Kidding!#!

I was fully prepared to open this thread, snort (to myself) at your Adorable Beginner's score of six or seven bags of leaves, then offer a little bit of encouraging praise so you'd like me. After I was done with the pleasantries, I was then going to start bragging about my last three weeks, which involved tremendous amounts of labor, gas money, and chipped leaves. I was then going to suggest that you, dear little new composter, locate your local landfill, fill up your gas tank, throw your 16 construction grade plastic bags in the back, get your heavy duty gloves, take a few Advil in advance and "get out there and get yourself a respectable haul."

You have just Totally Sucked All the joy out of my sails.

Zone 6? You've probably got the Harbor Master delivering truckloads of seaweed to your yard, too.

Please no one teach lovestogrow how to post pictures. I'm ill enough already.

....if it were I who had charmed my way (I make no assumptions.) into this Golden Situation, I would make it clear that "I will, for the rest of my entire life, Always Be Receptive to your dumptruck visits, no phone calls required, no advance warning necessary, put them in the driveway if there's no room anywhere else."

You've got enough leaves to make leaf mold, PLUS fill compost piles, PLUS do all your mulching with the most beautiful mulching material known to humankind.

I'm happy for you. : ^ [

Another one bitten....

It's good to have you in the compost cult.. And get your friends to join too... It is a big world and there is plenty of work to do.

While you have envy for someone else's stuff .... someone will be starting to envy your's.......... now go help find that dumptruck and show him where to drop the goods. The stuff IS out there.

Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

Patiently waiting for pictures......

Make sure you get one of the actual truck doing the delivery.

Lloyd (a.k.a. "Two of Nine")

Gonna give the pictures of the leaves a try.

To the left of the leaves is the garden space. I sowed groundhog radishes in it for a cover crop. I got them in a bit late but they are about 6 inches long and the size of a quarter. They are suppose to get 18 to 24 inches. I am also using them to loosen up the soil.

This was my first year for composting. I think it went well. I used grass clipping, yard waste, shredded junk mail (which I am so glad to see put to use)some horse and cattle manure, and some UCG's from Starbucks. I was only able to get about 75 lbs total but it was a start.

Now I am thinking I want to be able to compost larger amounts. With the resource of the leaves I have the browns, but what can I use for the greens on a larger scale?

{{gwi:317593}}

{{gwi:317593}}

I am thrilled by your ability to get shredded leaves. I have lots of leaves because I have a bunch of trees. For me I just keep the leaves all heaped together and add them to the compost piles as needed to mix with the leaves. I use a 25% green to 75% brown mix. So once a year I have way to many leaves than I need but by the time the next fall arrrives I'm ready for more leaves. does that make sense?

I am still a bit confused as to what you use for greens.

"Please no one teach lovestogrow how to post pictures. I'm ill enough already."

Sorry, annpat, can I get you a bucket?

tj

For greens use whatever you can get for free. It sounds like you are making the effort to get ahold of greens already. Even without the greens those shredded leaves will break down eventually. They are also worm candy so the earthworms will help you out over time. With any excess, you can use some as mulch, use some as soil conditioner and let some rot into leaf mold. You can also use them as a peat moss substitute. The area underneath those leaf piles is going to turn into very rich ground over time.

To accumulate large quantities of relatively cheap green material I would try to make contact with livestock producers and try to obtain manure. If you get horse manure, try to get it from a source that has some from horses that were not confined to stalls, as it more than likely would have a lot of shavings or straw (high carbon).
Gary

SCORE!!!

I thought I was doing pretty good because I finally asked my neighbor to blow his leaves into the native shrub border I'm creating along our property line. He was quite amenable to that and it means less work for me! But free truckloads of shredded leaves delivered?? It doesn't get much better than that in the compost whacko world.

You can use grass clippings or UCGs for greens. Or just leave piles as is and create leaf mold, great stuff. Or use shredded leaves as mulch. I think they make a very pretty mulch.

Outstanding!!

Looks like at least 10 yards of leaves!

Lloyd

Greens are what will heat up your compost pile. As mentioned grass clippings, veggie scrapes that were NOT cooked in fat or dairy products. Fruit rinds are also good.

Somewhere between 25% green and 75% browns up to a 50%/50% ratio is usually good at keeping the pile nice and warm and stops any bad smells that might attract rodents.

LLoyd,

How much would that "10 yards" compost down to?

I figure that when I finely mulch my leaves that they are about 10% or less the starting volume. When I get 2ý yds of finished compost, I figure they are maybe ü of well mulched leaves...?

Hi Wayne

If I shred the burr oak leaves with the chipper/shredder it goes down to about 10:1 but that is almost like a powder. Sometimes if it's too fine of a material, it makes it harder to get a compost pile to breath. Mostly I use the tractor mower and cyclone rake to shred (and I don't go out of my way to shred anymore) as I like some chunkiness, so 5:1 is good for me. Composting will reduce that again by about 50% once I get it down to the finished state I like, but then I would have had to add some kind of greens as well.

The perfect mix for me is when the dry leaves are on grass that needs about an inch cut off. The mower chops the leaves a bit and mixes with the grass clippings and then the cyclone rake sucks it all up. I swear, I stopped for a cup of coffee before emptying the rake and it had heat in it! Okay that might just be my imagination but it does heat up (110+) in less than 12 hours.

Large, whole leaves, can reduce down to 30%-40% by volume after composting. Lately, when I build windrows with the leaves in the fall, I have started to run them through the manure spreader after they have settled a few days. This allows for more materials to be windrowed in the space I am using.

Lloyd

oh.
I came on here the other day because I wanted to brag about my fall score, and this seemed like a likely thread to do it in, but then I got here and lovestogrow had just the most ridiculous, Huge brag, and it was pretty discouraging to everybody, so I went away without saying much. But this morning, I felt like I had to brag about my fall haul or bust, so I came back here, completely forgetting what a downer this thread was, and I am just not feeling it anymore.

annpat, green is not your color! Would it make you feel better if I told you I had plans on raiding neighbor's leaf bags and scooping up the leaves from the cemetery trees before the city got to them but all I managed was two lousy bags of leaves. Even the leaves from my own trees blew off down the road to some unknown place. I'm traumatized. And not a single pumpkin. No kids in our neighborhood. The older folks put out ceramic pumpkins with little electric lights! What is up with that?

We got hit with the big storm over the Rockies last week and now it is 7 degrees. I've given up on leaves. Now I'm reading the threads about wood ash and trying to decide if my alkaline soil can handle the output from my wood stove. (I'm thinking not. Ph around here averages 7.0-7.2 already.)

I didn't mean to make anyone green (wink) I just wanted to share my good fortune with people that I knew would understand. My wife thinks I am nuts for having leaves hauled in after mowing and raking leaves from the trees in the yard. I, like everyone else here knows how beautiful that compost is when its done.

Oh, don't mind me. I'm just thin-skinned.

(It really was a little upsetting, though.)

Did you try to make permanent arrangements with the dumptruck driver? If it were me, I'd find some way to handle all they would supply.

I told them to bring 2 more loads. It would be overwhelming if they brought all they could deliver. It would be in the scores of truck loads. I wouldn't mind, but the other half would. lol

I did think about having them delivered to my small farm (about 5 miles away), but am afraid they might think I was trying to take advantage of the situation and I do not want to take the chance that they might not bring them to me here at the house.

TWO MORE LOADS?!!!

I wish I hadn't asked.

I'm thrilled for you and love reading about your score. I'm also looking forward to pictures this spring. I want to see what is left of the piles and also where you use it.

I love composting and although I don't get mine shredded so I have to wait several years for the compost I'm still thrilled that I'm lucky enough to have a place where I can do this.

Take advantage??!! The mayor can get reelected on the green ticket & waste savings to the landfill. So ask them to take the leaves to the farm.
I wish I could get one of the small towns around my farm to dump the leaves & old straw on on my farm.
I need something to mix with all that coffee chaff.
I am happy for you, I have to stop & pick up bags of whole leaves. Please show us the finished compost. You could just turn the leaves under in the garden.

Heck they sell bags of composted leaves in Madison, WI.

I agree with Jolj; in fact, the Mayor should make a big deal of it, with the local news/newspapers covering it. Even if it brings more leaf hunters out, I'm sure there's more than enough to go around.