JACKSON, Miss– When it comes to raking the fall leaves, what you do with them may actually cost you money later.
Fall is here and the leaves are falling down. That’s the time to rake them into the pile. But what you do next may cost you money later.
“We see people put out bags of leaves or piles for the trucks to suck up, then later you’re going out to buy mulch,” says Nellie Neal, the Garden Mama.
Neal says you can save that money by keeping some of those leaves in a spot in the backyard during the winter months.
“Rake them into a cube in a space in your yard,” says Neal. It will decompose over the winter months, just keep going to turn the pile periodically to get the leaves equally decomposed.
“It’s a product you can’t buy in stores, or better that what you could buy,” says Neal. Not only is this saving money, but it’s also useful for patching the bare spots in the yard and filling the beds.
Neal points out that many people still don’t keep the leaves and they put them out for the solid waste crews to pick up.
“They’ll take them to their big pile and make mulch to use in the public spaces,” says Neal.
So even though money itself doesn’t grow on trees, what does grow may save you a little green.
Here’s everything The Garden Mama had to say on keeping that yard in the fall:
