As of late, Autumn comes not just with pumpkin spice and cinnamon scented paraphernalia but with many reminders to leave your leaves for the health of the ecosystem. But how can that apply to lawn-less New Yorkers?
Leaving the leaves can seem the obvious and even righteous action to take for a homeowner hoping to support the environment and cut down on futile tasks.
The logic of incorporating fallen leaves into the suburban or rural landscape is intuitive and hard to disagree with. A simple peek into a layer of leaf detritus will illustrate the significant contribution to biodiversity that leaves provide. In the insulated space, between the moist soil and a blanket of ochre and yellow leaves, you’ll find habitat for disappearing fireflies and amphibians, nesting areas for our native bees, a safe space for butterfly and moth cocoons, and more.
Furthermore, though raking leaves historically provided a wonderful opportunity for fall aerobics, the modern leafblower is the fossil fuel consuming update to this ancient ritual. Don’t get me started on the black plastic bags that this organic matter is usually shuffled into before making its forever home in an anaerobic landfill where it will finish its life generating methane (this is why we’ve always composted plant material from your gardens)!
To cut down on your unnecessary consumption of fossil fuels swap any of the following actions for leaf blowing and throwing away nutrients.
Don’t let leaves go to waste!
Responsible handling of fall leaves:
Rake leaves directly into your garden beds. Don’t be shy about piling them high for winter insulation. You can top planters and raised beds as well.
Pile in street tree beds and around trees in the yard. Use chicken wire to enclose the street tree bed if you don’t have a standard tree guard. These leaves will decompose by spring and offer nutrients to our unsung heroes. Improving the soil quality in our street trees helps them to absorb rainwater and elevate the efficacy of this critical green infrastructure. Leaving the leaves at the base of the trees that they fall from is a common sense way to keep the nutrient cycle in motion and reduce needs for fertilization the following year.
Make your own mulch. If you have a 2’ x 2’ space to spare you can also use chicken wire to create a leaf mulch pile in any corner of your yard. Once the leaf litter has decomposed to look like mulch, you can apply it to pots, planters and garden beds. This decomposition process delivers a formal looking result.
Deliver them to a local community garden. Leaves are an important part of the process of composting food scraps. Many gardens don’t often have enough browns (rich in carbon or carbohydrates) to mix with their greens (rich in nitrogen or protein) and greatly appreciate donated bags of leaves.
Use the city compost bins! You can sign up here for Curbside Collection with your very own brown bin and weekly compost pickup. Alternatively, the orange Smart bins installed on street corners throughout Brooklyn collect organics for incineration to power Department of Sanitation Facilities. You can learn more about that compost collection here.