>> I never have enough brown ingredients.
I know what you mean!
>> I just find it easier to buy the lovely bags of compost from my local nursery.
The "bulk" compost around here comes from "Cedar Grove", and they make a product that seems to be 80% - 90% wood shavings. Bleah! And it's pricey. Maybe I should buy one bag, to see if the bagged product is lots better than the cubic-yard product.
Instead, when I run out of "my" compost (which is "always"), I buy something in bags called a "manure-compost blend", which seems to be mostly aged, dried manure. At $1.25 per cubic foot, it seems worth it.
>> I do "steal" the bags of leaves the neighborhood puts out in the fall.
You recycle them!
You sequester their carbon footprint!
You help the town collect them as a public service!
>> I shred them and store them. Then the next year I incorporate them into my soil mix I use for planting.
Thanks for pointing out a third alternative to sheet composting and spot composting! Direct incorporation, mixed into soil. I hope you don't mind if I "steal" that idea for my article.
For example:
"Instead of making a compost pile, you could use the raw ingredients for mulching or sheet composting or "lasagna gardening". Or you can spot compost (bury raw organic material in holes or trenches between rows. Or shred leaves, paper, etc., and mix them directly into the soil before planting."
