Photo: SERGEYPETERMAN/Depositphotos
Soil health is an underrated, yet highly critical,environmental factor.
It promotes climate resistance, microbe diversity, and healthy plants and animals.
How can you support soil health and protect your local biome?
Photo: SERGEYPETERMAN/Depositphotos
This fall, experts are opposed to bagging up your leaves and disposing them in the trash.
Leaves contain nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
Yards which are scrupulously raked each fall may miss out on this important seasonal refresher.
Photo: JERRYB7/Depositphotos
But probably even more important than that, it’s the organic matter.
It’s the fact that you’ve got this tissue that then eventually decomposes and improves the soil health.
This matter is also the home to bugs, slugs, and small animals.
Not pests; these are critical to ecosystems.
To harness this valuable resource, do not bag up your leaves.
Instead, run over thin layers with a lawn mower or collect them into a compost bin.
This will turn the leaves into a nutritious mulch to nourish your garden or lawn.
When bagged, leaves end up in landfills.
While leaves themselves are biodegradable, they need oxygen to actually breakdown.
Trapped in bags, they release a lot of methane, which is bad for the environment.
City dwellers may have to be careful, as loose leaves can wash into and clog drains.
However, many municipalities collect and recycle leaves, so check your local town or city website.
But remember, the leaves are not a nuisance.
We want to think about those leaves as being a resource, Barton says.
And that’s a natural process.
