The Six New Beds

Beginning in February, 2018, I cleared out much of the processing area and used the space to create six new garden beds from shredded leaves. To create the beds, I first made an elongated pile of leaves I had collected from the neighborhood and run over with my mower. I stored the bags of leaves I collected in my garage until I had a chance to shred them.

By March 6, I had reshredded most of the leaves I had mowed, and I piled them up in one long pile in the middle of the processing area.

All that were left of the mowed leaves at this point were in these piles by the back of the house. You can see bags of leaves on the back patio. The bricks in front of the piles are part of a short stand I made to position the leaf shredder at an angle that kept the leaves moving through the shredder bag, which was open in the back, without piling up in the bag and causing the shredder to clog up with shreds.

The leaves I had previously mowed only provided enough shreds to make the northern half of the bed area I wanted. For the rest, I had to keep collecting and shredding many bags of leaves, moving the shredder closer to the house as the pile that started in the back of the yard grew longer.

Once I felt I had enough shreds for the new beds, I spread them into a 46' x 14' area, about a foot deep. I then shoveled out a walkway in the center to create two rectangles. At one point in the shredding process, I had to move my compost pile out of the middle of the area where I was working and into the mini lawn.