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For all you late baggers and reluctant rakers, we're just dropping in to share a recent story from our CSU Extension gardening experts with tips about how to properly mulch and compost your leaves!

https://engagement.source.colostate.edu/skip-the-bags-how-to-mow-compost-and-mulch-leaves-instead/

TL:DR

• Mowing Leaves: Using a lawn mower to chop leaves into small pieces allows them to filter into the grass, improving soil health, providing nutrients, and suppressing weeds. This process works best with dry leaves and requires setting the mower at a high level.
• Composting Leaves: Excess leaves can be composted for garden use. Whole leaves are preferred over shredded ones, as finely chopped leaves can inhibit oxygen flow, slowing decomposition. Combining leaves (carbon-rich) with nitrogen-rich materials like grass clippings balances the compost. The story also provides advice on managing oak and cottonwood leaves, compost bin sizing, and maintaining moisture levels.
• Using Leaves as Mulch: Leaves can serve as mulch for garden beds and around landscape plants, providing insulation and organic matter. Mulched leaves help retain moisture, support soil microbes, and encourage earthworm activity, all of which improve soil health and reduce waste going to landfills.
• Bonus Pollinator Points: Leave the leaves! Leaf litter can be critical for bumblebees looking for safe places to overwinter. Leave leaf litter in an undisturbed area until bumblebees emerge in the spring, which is generally between mid-April and mid-May. However, avoid leaving leaf litter on your lawn to prevent grass smothering, mold, and disease.

Questions? Check out the links in the story or submit your query via Ask Extension and it'll be routed to one of our local experts: https://ask2.extension.org/widget.html?team_id=1955?default_location=CO?default_county=All

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Hello Fellow Gardeners!

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Spent mushroom substrate blocks can't be used to grow mushrooms again, but we can give them a second life in your garden or farm. Your plants will like them guaranteed.

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The only thing we ask is to leave the bag, please.

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Oddly specific but I'm very new at this...We have a ground-level window that is constantly muddy from rain dripping from the roofline onto the dirt. The Internet says to put down gravel or mulch. I suppose I should first diagnose the dripping, but do you use gravel too, or plamts? Maybe a xeric garden in gravel, to keep the water low?

From my walk yesterday.

Hi all! New to the area and didn't really expect a real snow! The few plants I have only have a thin layer of mulch on them. Should I be worried? I have mulch that I'll throw on them when this melts! I've been focused on other projects and this got away from me

I have an AeroGarden (self-contained indoor hydroponic system) which has been gathering dust for several years which I might take out of the closet and use to grow some chiles (perhaps attempting to grow some of New Mexico's Chimayo chiles with their Grow Anything kits)

Do you have any indoor gardening plans for the winter?

I have two raised beds that I built in April this year and had a good summer garden. Everything has run its course and I’d like to clear the beds out and prep it for winter, but also curious what I could possibly grow over the winter in Denver.

Help me, I’m poor.

Grow your own food this winter! Come get immersed in the magic of oyster mushrooms in this hands on, all ages, class!

I made a scheduling mistake over the summer, hoping to have new grass or planting established before winter. Unfortunately my yard is a desolate Tattooine wasteland; I couldn’t figure out what I should plant, I don’t want a ton of grass and would prefer shrubs/local plants/flowers but…I know nothing. Now I’m looking at a winter of mud, because I have 3 dogs. Advice? Guidance? Anything I can/should plant now? I’m not good at this

With the first frost of the year, I am letting the outside hydroponic garden run thru the storm, covering the SIP system and in ground planted herbs and hoping the herbs survive until I can take cuttings and transplant. The tomatoes were excellent but done today. Still need to harvest potatoes next weekend and am hoping I can do some turnips but know they shoulda been in a month+ ago.

What was your favorite thing you grew this season?

What was your biggest challenge this season?

Does anyone have experience with palram greenhouses? Need to know if they structurally withstand Colorado winters before buying one for my parents yard.

Does anyone have recommendations for frost cloth to use over my fall vegetable garden to protect from this week’s cold weather? I have lettuce, cabbage, chard, and herbs along with a recently sprouted ground cover of oats, peas, and radish that I would like to continue growing. Thanks!

Hi gardeners! I planted some native perennials in my community garden plot this year (aster and columbine) and next year I hope to move to a new garden that provides me a little more space.

I'm thrilled at how they did and would like to get further return on my investment by somehow transplanting them into pots onto my apartment balcony, letting them further die back over the winter, and then transplanting them into my new garden plot in the spring. Could this work? This seems like a lot of root disturbance but they also seem like hardy plants. Would it still be beneficial for me to wait to cut the stalks down until spring, or should I do it now? Mulch them somehow? Bring them inside? All of the conventional wisdom I've read primarily relates to plants that are staying put. Additionally, I could go back and dig them up in early spring before the new gardener moves in.

I don't mind that they'll look brown and shrively on my balcony all winter as long as there's a chance they'll come back in the spring! I love perennials and I know they get better every year, but given I have a rented plot it lacks the same permanence I'd have if I were a homeowner gardening on my own property. Tips?

We harvested way too many, I'll never get through processing them. You can make your own sponges! and collect the seeds! Free!

I am not sure if anyone would even be interested, but I'm trying to save them from the compost.

Hi all!

I understand what to add to our clay, but HOW do we do it without breaking our backs? We recently bought a house here, and it's all packed clay. It's a nightmare to dig into, let alone as deep as recommended. I have a section I'm determined to amend before winter!

Both looked like the one of the right when picked, I started to notice the difference after a day or two. They’re Hungarian Wax peppers

We have a swale between houses where water drains, whether from rain or sprinklers. Looking for a native tree to plant that can tolerate the moist (clay) soil here in Denver.

Hi all, I got a native shadows garden from resource central and wasn't able to get them in the ground. They've been watere/fed in their pots since the late summer pickup. At this point, what's my best approach to keep the plants alive over winter? Should we plant them and put a hoop house around the plantings? Is it best to put them in larger pots and bring them inside a shed? Any/all advice welcome. But comments about how I should have planted them a month ago are not helpful/nor wanted at this point.

Wanting to throw some native grass seeds down about now. Any suggestions on where to get straw for mulch? I know places like Ace will have it, but at a super inflated price.

Any other suggestions for fall sowing?

This is a photo of my flowered front yard in mid-June. Since then I've had tons of sunflowers, cosmos, black-eyed susans, other daisy-like things, and other CO wildflowers blooming. I also have some sages and yarrows. I've got two giant Russian sages and a couple of big catmint plants too.

Now that they are all pretty much brown & crispy (nice decor for Spooky Season!), I need to clean things up, or at least I think so!

What do I pull up? What do I cut back, and how much? Do I do this now? Do I wait until spring? There is so much conflicting advice out there. I want to be good to the bugs that use the dead foliage to hibernate (or whatever) and also not have my yard look like just a pile of sticks all winter.

I appreciate all suggestions!

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This isn’t from my garden but from the farmers market yesterday. Why do so many of the onions I’ve bought lately have rot and mold inside? I’ve been seeing this regularly from onions at kings for a couple years now. I’ve been fed up with this so I figured they must be better at the farmers market. Wrong as the first one I sliced into is the worst onion I’ve seen yet. Anyone with any insight on this issue?

I'm feeling behind with lifting my dahlias, gladiolus, and planting garlic. Am I too late for all of this? Should I do it ASAP before the snow or wait until after the snow on Wednesday?

I hope this is allowed here- I am hoping to find someone with raspberry plants who likes the barter system! I have a great spot for some raspberries and also have a plethora of onions (and some great looking squash) I just picked that I would love to trade to you! If anyone is interested, please let me know! Happy gardening!