Leaves are friends, not garbage!

Every day a veritable genocide occurs with "yard waste" all across America.

Do you know how plants grow? They use up the nutrients of the soil to grow. If you then throw all of that plant matter away, especially if you already have poor soil, you're essentially throwing your soil, your future vegetables, your other plants, your flowers, YOUR MONEY, away.

And you're usually paying for the convenience to do so!

They charge you to haul away all the nutrients from your soil, then charge you for compost, often made from the same waste you or others threw away!

Same with wood chips. They just might be a bit more selective.

Funnily enough though, the less selective stuff is actually a lot better for your yard. Full trees, not just chipped, but ground, are the best think you can get for mulch, because when it breaks down, it gives you more of the nutrients you want. Wood chips are mostly just fiber/carbon.

BUT, those leaves and wood chips and all the other crap you throw away, makes great mulch!

Why am I going on about this? Because for the last few days, more than a week, I've been working every day in the garden, cutting out more and more space, and planting more veggies, and mulching my beds with, you guessed it, leaves.

Why?

Because it's fucking corona virus time. I don't want to go out and buy mulch. Not to mention, it either comes in a plastic bag, which I'm not too fond of, or you gotta buy a fuckton.

I don't really wanna buy a fuckton.

I'm tempted to try to get a yard trimmer guy to dump something in my driveway, but I'm a bit worried about trying to talk to them in this situation, and I have to actually catch one, or try to call one up on the phone and convince them to not sell me mulch, but give it to me, for as little as possible.

It's not that hard to get them to dump yard waste in your driveway or yard if you aren't too picky, but when you're afraid to even talk to anyone on a normal day and then you got a pandemic going on...it's not too fun.

Back to the leaves...

Most leaves aren't bad. Some take a bit to break down. Maybe a bit of extra nitrogen. Maybe a bit of something wet mixed in, like manure, or wet grass.

Manure is another problem these days though. Because our beloved overlords, Monsanto, have poisoned the well. All these fucking idiots are putting these horrible defoliates on their hay and other feed, and those get fed to the animals, and they pass right through them, and end up in the manure, and then you use the manure in your compost, and then put it on your garden beds, and it kills everything.

Yeah, it's a thing. Toxic compost. Toxic manure. You pretty much can't fully trust compost and manure these days because of these massive corporations poisoning the well.

So, now I'm trying to get the low down on some rich horses that are fed premium feed that costs more than my life...and I might actually be able to get some of that rich ass candy. But I also have to figure out how to get it from the fields to my house. That's gonna be difficult and may involve filling totes in the back of a normal car because somehow everyone has nice SUV's or cars these days, not pickup trucks.

But even if you can get some great compost and great manure, and your soil ends up beautiful and your veggies are happy...they won't be happy for long, because the sun will bleach that soil and the rain will wash it away, and weeds will seed themselves. So you need mulch. Whether it's shitty colored mulch from the stores, or nice expensive cedar chips, or what, you need mulch. It helps retain moisture, reduce erosion, and breaks down into further nutrients.

Leaves are our friends! Stop throwing them away! Just rake them into your garden bed, and if you're worried about what your neighbors will think, put your expensive mulch on top of it, maybe with some expensive nitrogen source mixed in, like bat guano, or chicken manure.

Remember when they used to say you should never put chicken manure on your vegetables because of salmonella? Those were the days. The days before using cow manure could mean your garden was completely destroyed.

Anyone else get the feeling Monsanto did this on purpose?

I would never suggest that they have an evil plan to take over the world by poisoning all of our food supply and forcing everyone to have to use their GMO seeds...but...

BTW, I'm still tired as fuck. And unfortunately my sun tan isn't coming along as fast as I would hope, because I end up tiring myself out too early and then it gets hot and I take a break. Whoops!

_{NPS Photo / Monica Larcom (source)}