today it's dark cold damp it's really
turning into winter guys and that is the
perfect time in which to make leafmold
this sort of weather really brings the
leaves down onto the ground so it's
perfect for it
what I would suggest though is that you
get out there and get them don't collect
them from from really busy roads or
anything like that because of all the
pollutants and stuff but if there's a
quiet road like here then you can
collect them from that the contaminants
would be relatively low but at this time
of year is all you know leaves it all
over the place people use on the spread
them on the ground and they also you
know will dig trenches and bury them in
trenches and things like that. Now if you like
a lot of people you will build yourself
a wire cage and you will throw all the
leaves in that wire cage or even
compost bins things like that. you'll throw all
the leaves in and you will leave them
decomposed which takes around about
12-18 months to two years
ok it's a long time guys now there is a
way to speed that up and what you need
to do is you need to collect the leaves
ok and and as you can see here we have
some maple and some beach leaves and
we shred those leaves no you can use
anything you want to shred. we use lawn mowers
we use shreders we use leaf
vacuums anything like that that you can
shred your leaves will be perfect. for us it's
all about this stuff
this is leaf mould and it's one of the
best additives you can give to your
garden
it really is good think about
these trees guys every single year tree
grows bigger above the
ground but below ground they are growing
bigger as well they're sending roots
further and further down every single
year so each year is tapping into
nutrients that were unavailable to us
because most plants like these don't get
down far enough to get to those
nutrients and the trees recycle those
nutrients by dragging them up through
the
root system and they put them out into
the leaves those leaves them fall onto
the surface and ground at autumn and they
have a couple of purposes they act like
solar panels in the summer so they photosynthesing
and and those
nutrients all locked within early but
when they land on the ground those
leaves then carpet the floor they
created a natural mulch which then stops
any competing sort of trees and things
from coming up competing with the tree
that's they already ok so it is twofold
but those nutrients and then unlocked
to the top of layers of the soil and as
you can see this stuff is absolutely
beautiful
you could sow your seeds directly into
this so to get it this fine we make a
leaf mold in six months guys. so we could
make four batches by the time most
people making one just by emptying those
leaves into a wire cage now we have a
video right up here from last year that
shows the exact process we use in which
to produce this in six months and what
we're going to do this year's batch
we're going to show you in june so you
can see just how much is broken down and
it is usable in June we have a couple of
bins of this left this will end up in the
garden you know as a sort of
topdressing to sort of inrich and build
that organic matter in the soil bring
some nutrients back to it and and that's
what we'll be doing with what we got
left this year as you can see here we
shred our leaves four times okay guys and
we've got a couple of shreds and here
you will see between the second and the
third shred the natural fungi is
growing so the microrhyzal fungi and
everything is all going to leave already
and this is just two days after the
second shred but we shred four times so
we just bang it through the shredder again okay
and this is what happens at the forth
shred as you can see it's very fine okay
and heat builds and it builds really
really quick and you can see the steam
coming out of this in
fact i burnt my hands when I was
pulling this out but what happens after
that steam built after that heat built
this subsides after a few days but while
it's there
it helps to break down those leaves even
further and then after that heat
subsides ok stay warm in the center and
that's where all worms and things like
that will move in
no don't get me wrong leafmold isn't a
biological breakdown process it's a
fungal but the worms and things still
play a part in it now the fungi gets
going and even through the winter it's
working really really well now we're
going to try something new this year
we're trying it in and 1 tonne bags so we
filling that bag
now give you some sort of idea this bag here
which has been shredded four times holds
18 of these bags so it's a massive
amount guys and you know so we know what
the end of the year we gonna have a few
tonne of this stuff that we can use and
it's great we haven't got to buy compost or
anything like that because this is a
best if you can so you seeds in and
look how fine it is, it looks like soil there's
no smell to it but i'm going to give you
another killer tip
besides this video up here that shows
you how we did it in this video we used
urine as a catalyst but we also go to
our local woods we scrape all the
leaves and timber and stuff away on the
local woods and we pull this stuff okay
and this is just and woodland soil we
don't need a lot of it you need just
enough to make a big tea bag and squish
it together like this it's got woods
and little bits of leaves and stuff like
that in but it doesn't matter we squash it
together like this we put it in some
hessian and tie it up and we dump this
into a water barrel what this does it
releases all the microbes and
everything and then once all those
microbes are released and the fungi's and
everything else into the water you water
this onto leaves now talking of watering
leaves its really
important to keep those leaves moist guys
they have to be continually moist if you let
them dry out fungi and things are going to die
so you want to be watering your leaves
every 10 days so if you want leaf mould
like this in six months
ok get yourself across to this video will also
be links at the end of this video for
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things like that anyways that's it from
myself i hope to see you in the next one. bye