My hubby bought me an amazing leaf shredder late last year, and I shredded more than 100 bags of leaves, using them to mulch all exposed soil areas in my landscape.

The weather has been incredibly rainy here in Pacific Northwest, but there was a break today that enabled me to get in the garden to look about a bit. I turned over a bit of this wonderful shredded leaf mulch and found massive concentrations of earthworms! Big ones, small ones, all active, fat and happy! It's always such a delight to see life in the soil, and wonderful to know that just a bit of mulch can go a long way to ensuring it remains healthy!

KellyS

Ah, it IS the amazing VermiGoddess.

Okay, okay, on the QT now. I did have a question. Based on the instruction to 1. Drill half-inch holes two inces apart in the sides of the bin, 2" below the upper lip and 1.5 " up from the bin floor.

These holes go in rings around the outer edges of the plastic storage tote worm bin from the top and bottom edges? I may be missing a step, but once you said if a prepped bin was left out in contact with the ground, the worms would come. How do they get in? With the holes on the sides? I was thinking holes were on the bottom. Do you rest your bins on something? How much liquid waste is produced?

Okay, okay.

I'm happy that you lured worms to your leaf mulch. I am just now learning about LM. I have magnolia trees, not so good for enticing wormies. I borrowed Chinese Elm Gold.

What model is your amazing Leaf Shredder. I'm still in the Market and shunning Harbor Freights offerings.

Yes, what model! And does it shred better than a lawnmower? In Fall I try to keep ahead of the leaves by mowing when they're just a few inches deep with grass catcher in place. I deposit directly on the beds in what ever area I'm mowing. But sometimes mother nature dumps them too deeply and I've wondered about the efficiency of a leaf shredder.

Cena! When I saw that name among the members I hoped that it was you! It's nice to be able to gather with you in a friendly place again!

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Let's try this one, which should apply to your worm bin question, and see if we approach maximum communication:



Whether the holes encircle the bin or are just on the long sides is really up to you. Hole size and placement as I've suggested them in my handouts were not arrived at using scientific data, rather they were determined by the size drill bit that happened to be in my drill motor at the time and by the distance apart that was aesthetically pleasing. I do not recomend using teeny-tiny holes as these actually do not allow for optimal drainage, but all else can be at the whim of the bin manager. I know one lady whose hole patterns on each long side of her bin was shaped like flowers!

As to my leaf shredder, it is a 10 Hp Yardman, purchased from Home Depot. I need a shredder that can adequately handle wet leaves, as here in the PNW autumn begins our 9 month rainy season and we rarely if ever shred dry leaves. I trialed 8 units, one of which was a commercial honda lawnmower, and none but the Yardman were equal to the task. Specific to your question, Cynthia, I do not find lawn mowers at all adequate for actually shredding leaves (I owned and operated a landscaping company for 7 years), thus I focused more on units specifically designed for debris shredding. The only unit I trialed that could reduce wet leaves without clogging was the Yardman.

Advantages to this unit:

10:1 reduction (nice small shreds!)
Fast!
Easy start
Mobile
Suited for wet material
Handles small branches and twigs as well as leaves
Deposits shredded material into a bag

Challenges:

Goes through the fuel!
Loud!
Large footprint, somewhat of a challenge to store
Expensive (though, in my opinion, worth it)

Late last year I retired and sold my business. With some of the proceeds we bought hubby the big screen TV with surround system he's always wanted, and I got the world's best leaf shredder. Personally, I think I got the better toy!

Cena, I am off to the dog show, but will get to your other worm bin questions later, when I return! It's sure nice to "see" you again!

KellyS

Thank you, so Much for that small effort. I now, pretty much have no questions, aside from the 'disbelief' effect "Worms sneak in through THERE?" but if you say they do, they must.

Good to see you here too. I'm pretty sick of GW, and only so much to say or read elsewhere, that applies to me...

I'm really glad to see this is an active discussion. Moved it to its own forum today. Dig in!

Wow! Thank you, Dan! I wasn't sure if vermicomposting was sufficiently interesting to the larger group to ask for a specific forum, but I'm delighted you feel it might attract enough attention!

WooHoo!

KellyS

Hi Kelly:

This vermiculture thing just might go places. Worm etiquette can always use a special voice, and no one has a specialer worm voice than you, in my knowledgable opinion.

That said, I've begun a new oxygen-infusion experiment with one bin since we last "spoke". I'm preparing details and will monitor results to report here.

Thanks for letting me know about gardenforums.

Chuckiebtoo

[Late last year I retired and sold my business. With some of the proceeds we bought hubby the big screen TV with surround system he's always wanted, and I got the world's best leaf shredder. Personally, I think I got the better toy!


KellyS[/quote]

Does that mean that if he forces you to watch the big screen he must get on the business end of the shredder in return?

Chuckiebtoo

Are you crazy?!? No one touches that leaf shredded but me! My husband is smart enough to know that the garden and the tools that are used in it are made for my hands, and my hands alone. I do the landscape work in our family, and hubby is the better cook!

As to big screen TV watching, I admit that I do like it, just not every day.

KellyS

Kelly, can you take a pic of the yardman? I'm looking for one, as well. We're on 88 acres and need a leaf shredder that will handle debris from pecans and various other trees. I don't need the 4" trees shredded. I had a unit that did that but it was a hassle to always change the screens. I don't mind if I'm shredding alot at once for mulch, but switching from leaves to debris is a pain. Can yours handle debris as well as the wet leaves? I have a small "leaf shredder" cheapie that works like a weed wacker, but I have to take out all the debris. I'd like to be able to shred both at the same time. Is that possible?
hilary

hilary I took the screen out of my shredder. Smartest thing I ever did. I am the ONLY one that uses it, and I know better than to put my hand up in there. That is really the only reason for the screen.

Here it is:

I also took the feeder tube for limbs off my old shredder that died and attached it on my new one. I liked the way you could feed through it better.

thanks for the pic. We finally were able to talk to someone at HD about it. We have a new superstore HD opening up here tonight so we are going to go talk to them about it. We are wavering between this one, the Patriot 10hp, and the 5.5 hp Bearcat. It needs to be rugged as it will get LOTS of use. We have 88 acres of leaves plus we haul in more as we're "greedy" for compost..
hilary

deleted my double post. past my bedtime!

I use our riding mower to pick up leaves. It doesn't shred them as much as a shredder, but it a lot easier than raking them all!
I get most of mine from my neighbor's yard, 3/4 of an acre at least, of bigleaf maple leaves. By the time the last leaves are down, I've had enough of it. I just dump them in my large wire bins and let them sit all winter. I did put mulching blades on last year and that cut them smaller than the standard blade.
We did get a chipper/shredder last fall, just a little Sears model, but it's enough and doesn't take up much room. I shredded a lot of straw in it to put down as mulch. When I'd use whole straw, some of it would persist for over a year and I wanted it to break down faster. I recently shredded some prunings from several bushes and it did fine with those too, plus reduced the size of our burn pile. The best part is we paid less than $100 for it used, so I should get my moneys worth out of it.
Yes Kelly, it has been incredibly rainy this winter. I've sure enjoyed this long stretch without it!! I've been out with my flamer several days, getting an early start on the weeds that are so thick this year, probably from all the rain and the mild temps.

Rain? Rainy? What's that?

It is BONE dry around here. Firetrucks head out in to the country sides daily, to combat the wildly moving fires. Specially on windy days, like we had yesterday. Today's prediction is 20 to 30 MPH winds again.

Sure would be nice, to see rain.

My grass would LOVE it. My perenials, bushes and trees would LOVE it.

My gardenhose wouldn't need to groan from getting unrolled in cold temps, and I wouldn't need to drain it after using it.

Yup, rain would be nice.