Hockeyrabbit
We collect our leaves with the lawn tractor/bagger and then shred them into a pile with a big antique leaf shredder where they sit over winter. In the spring I mix leaves to composted horse manure about 2 to one. After weeding a bed I spread alfalfa pellets and milorganite then top dress the beds with an inch to 2 inches of the leaf/compost mix. The top dress gets worked in by the worms and by the next spring the beds are ready for more. This process, along with adding straight horse compost when redoing a bed, has helped to turn my mostly clay soil into soil I can wiggle my fingers down into, it's been about 9 -10 years.
We used a large amount of rough ground bark one year to keep the horses out of the mud by the feeder. Several years later (and a downsize from 5 to only 1 horse) we moved the paddock fence so I could use a section for more seedlings (
). The bark still hadn't broken down completely and was terrible to plant those seedlings in, much grumbling as I bloodied my fingers planting. After 3 years those seedlings are in the toss rotation this year and I am hoping I do not find any bark left as I dig them out!
