To Whom Mulch is Given, Mulch Shall be Required
The leaves are down. Now what? WRITTEN & ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE, for NPR
MY RADIO PRODUCER took a look at my latest list of commentary ideas and swept them aside like so many fallen leaves.
Hey…wait a minute…there’s an idea!
And now, let’s rake, shall we? Or, not!
HOST INTRO: The leaves are down, the trees are bare, and there’s less light every day. That’s why KUNC commentator Peter Moore is firing up his lawnmower, and preparing for spring.
WHEN MY WIFE AND I MOVED TO FORT COLLINS from back east, we’d squint up at the searing sunshine and ask ourselves, “Is it even safe to live here?” The Colorado sun is a force, crisping our garden and turning our skin cells into potential cancer factories. The only things protecting us: A massive American elm to the south of our backyard, two Green Ash trees to the north, and a soaring Silver Maple to the west. Their leaves are a life saver: for our garden, and for the human beings who tend it.
But now those leaves have fallen. And our yard isn’t looking great.
The Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson wrote: “Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they’re falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.” Alas, Gibson died of ovarian cancer last summer. So now the poet is no longer around to call out the leaves as they rush toward a lover’s embrace with our lawns.
Perhaps you hate that big Autumnal hug. Leaves that are peep-worthy along the Peak-to-Peak highway in October, are lawn litter in November. Your fastidious neighbor gives them, and you, the stink-eye, and your hands will blister with every sweep of the rake. Or, worse yet, maybe you’re wielding the leaf blower to whine them into piles, when you’d rather be watching the Broncos.
Spring forward, fall nuisance.
There is a better way. And as a lazy person, I embraced it immediately. The National Wildlife Foundation has launched “Leave the Leaves Month,” encouraging each of us to, well, leave well enough alone. Don’t rake. Don’t blow. Don’t bag. Just Chill. Your fastidious neighbor may judge you for it. But butterflies, bees, birds, and beasts will love that leafy mess you call your yard. For critters, clutter is a combination of supermarket, shelter, obstetrics ward, and graveyard. It’s where the natural cycle rounds the bend from death into rebirth. And all that can happen on your lawn.
When I first read about “Leave the Leaves” a couple of years ago, I thought it was permission to ignore them entirely. Not so much. As the Bible tells us in Luke 12:48: “To whom mulch is given, mulch shall be required.”
Or, at least I think that’s what the Bible verse says.
If your yard is surrounded by trees, like mine is, an untended leaf carpet could kill everything underneath it. But instead of stripping the lawn bare, I mulch it. Out with the leaf bag, in with our electric lawnmower, which turns a fall problem into a spring promise. I’ve fired up my lawnmower five times in the last three weeks, to mulch the fallen leaves into free fertilizer. Plus, it’s an A.S.M.R. treat to roar around the yard productively crunching dried organic matter.
When I say “mulch,” I’m not talking about that bagged and dyed shredded bark from the hardware store. That stuff is death itself. But leaf mulch is a transitional stage leading from the inert to awesome, decay to delight. Yes, it’s way too early to be thinking about daffodils. But the bulbs are down there, anyway, ticking away like organic bombs that will burst into flowers. And those flowers wonder: Will a butterfly visit, and pollinate, when the time comes?
The leaves now melting into my lawn say yes. A thousand times yes.
Andrea Gibson was right: Leaves love the ground, and the ground loves them back. So why banish them to the yard-waste bin, when they can do so much good, right where they fell? Tell your nosy neighbor to mind his own business, while you lay the groundwork for spring.
OUTRO. Peter Moore is a writer and cartoonist living in Fort Collins. You can hear, and see, more of his work at KUNC.org.
“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.” —Walt Whitman
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So, do tell: What’s your weirdest Thanksgiving tradition? For about three decades, my father, brothers, and I would push back from the dinner table and head out to a nearby football field, where we’d kick extra points and field goals. It was a point of pride who nailed the most, until the next year, when the rivalry renewed. It’s surprisingly hard to split the uprights!
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No established traditions. But once my brother fell through the seam of 2 tables put together and the potatoes and gravy followed him on the way down. He landed face up with potatoes and gravy following him. We had my family there, 8 of us and my Aunt and uncle with their 7 kids. My Aunt looked at my mom and those two bust a gut laughing so hard. My poor brother was crying but we all were laughing.
We do a combo. Some leaves get chopped into the lawn, others get raked into the woods next to the lawn. I made a big pile at the edge of the woods of pruned off asparagus stalks, dead raspberry canes, and other garden debris that was too tough for the compost pile... my husband normally uses the tractor to squash them down and push them out of sight, but this year he decided to surprise me: He left the dead-plant-parts-pile in place and piled a bunch of leaves on top, so the wild critters get a new house for the winter. I was very pleased. I've already seen little birds diving in and out of it. He is a very good husband - he knows how to make me happy!