New additions
When Tropical Gardening Works Coir Used As a Potting Medium Obtaining Free Mulch For Your Garden - Uses And Methods Of Getting It Over Wintering Chilli Pepper Plants
Organic herbs
Organic vegetables
Forum
Tell a Friend about Us
Even Greener Products for your garden
Sitemap
Articles about Compost and Soil Treatments
Aerated Compost Tea, The New Organic Fertilizer
Carbon:Nitrogen ratio of common compost materials
Compost mixtures you can make at home
Composting is Fun for the Whole Family
Green manures and Cover crops in the Organic Garden
Here is Why You Should Use Gypsum in Gardening
How to build a compost heap
How to make loam and leafmould
How to make worm compost
How to solve problems with compost making
How to use organic fertilisers
Mulching - Comparison of costs and results for organic and inorganic mulches
Mulching Benefits - Organic And Inorganic Mulch Types
N:P:K Analysis of common composting materials
Obtaining Free Mulch For Your Garden - Uses And Methods Of Getting It
Soil Basics - Creating Fertile, Healthy Soil
Soil PH And Its Effect On Your Garden
Understanding Soil Nutrients
Using Garden Compost
Visit our Forum
About us
Links page
Add URL
Privacy
Disclaimer
Organic Gardening:
How to make loam and leafmould
by Frann Leach
Looking for something else?
While loam may be available, to be certain that it is both organic and of good quality may be a problem. As for leafmould, you will be lucky to find a source of this, organic or otherwise. But both are very easy to make for yourself, needing only a quiet corner, and no attention beyond the initial stacking until they are ready for use in a year or two.
To make loam
Cut turf (minimum two years old), free from weeds and couch grass, with about 5cm (2") of soil attached. Stack grass-side down for at least a year.
To make leafmould
In most towns and suburbs it is possible to obtain dead leaves, either unofficially by bribing the road men, or officially through the council. A traditional leafmould heap can go in dry shade under trees where nothing much will grow. Level the ground and drive in stout posts 3 feet high at the corners, adding extra posts every yard if you are going to have leaves enough to make a large heap. Staple 3 foot high wire netting to the outsides of the posts and pile in the leaves as they are gathered, removing dead branches and paper litter if they are swept from the streets. Hose the heap once or twice the first summer, especially if this is a dry one.
Never include weeds or garden rubbish in the leaf pile (or dead leaves in a compost heap), for the decay of leaves is carried out by fungi that need no oxygen because there is very little heating, and the whole process is much slower. After a year the heap will have sunk and firmed, so the posts can be dug up with the netting and moved to make the enclosure for next autumn's leaves. Year old leafmould is good enough to dig into a sandy soil or to lighten clays, but for potting soil it should wait for another year.
Leafmould may be hastened by pouring Household Liquid Activator on the leaves. This will break down refractory leaves (e.g. plane, chestnut) in one year rather than three, and produces improved decay for leaves of any kind. Another system begins with a traditional leaf stack, but in the spring, as soon as ample lawn mowings are available, turn the leaf stack, mixing in about 25 percent of its bulk of the mowings. This will produce good "leafmould" in as little as six months, which will make an excellent surface coat to go between bush fruit, or as a mulch for no-digging systems.
