Ruud Kleinpaste: Autumn leaves are falling down - what can you do with them?

It’s a great time of the year. The leaves tumbling down in wind or rain, even in very cold conditions, tells us it’s going to be winter soon. Some leaves are pretty sturdy on the lawn, others blow themselves to the old growing places for plants, flowers, fruits, and seeds. What now? Gather them up and put them in the weekly recycle bin? There are a few things we can do to make them useful for the garden: Collect a heap of these leaves and put them in a compost bin. Mix the leaves with twigs and woody debris, some old food scraps and dog poo. Literally anything that once lived can be composted and turned into next season’s plant food – think N-P-K. Get a good depth (four inches or so) that you can scatter over the dormant pants. This will protect the plants during winter, and it will also keep the very cold ice-base away from the hibernating plant. Everything is then protected from tricky conditions. If you add some slow-release fertiliser as well, you’ll literally increase the fertility of that patch of your garden. But the third one is my favourite: Get yourself a big plastic container (where you usually grow some large specimens with plenty of root space). Fill that container up with fallen-down leaves, and as you are filling it up, simply stand on the leaves (and small branches) and smack it into a nice compact layer of leaves. Then you turn the bin upside down and you end up with a perfect, compact tower of compressed leaves, ready for spring or next year autumn! The spring leaves would be great to keep the developing plants safe, warm, and surrounded by fertiliser. The year-old lot will be dry, light and the very best long-lasting winter cover for the coming months. My personal way to go even further is by chucking everything inside a sizeable rubbish bin (at least a meter tall), in which you can really go to town with massive amounts of fallen, dried leaves. They will suit soil improvement, great fertility, and easy-to-dry soil conditions. Just be careful stepping in and out of such a huge rubbish bin without breaking legs and necks… LISTEN ABOVE

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Ruud Kleinpaste: Autumn leaves are falling down - what can you do with them? is an episode from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame by NZME.

This episode is 3:59 long.

This episode was published on May 15, 2026.

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