Post in Plastic Grocery Bags in Minneapolis

Mar 17 22:53 UTC

David and others who live closer to Powderhorn:

I am a gardener with no trees in my yard.  I am always scrounging bags
of leaves - even stealing them out of alleys.  I overfill a couple of
city black compost bins each season and need some leaves to mix with the
"green".  I  also have a large open bin for leaves and grass clippings -
stuff I can use fresh or partially rotted for mulch on my garden beds.
I beg for leaves - especially oak leaves for my yard can use the
acidity.  If someone near Powderhorn has too many leaves and wants a
partnership, contact me at sean at tcq.net.  You don't even have to bag
the leaves - rake them onto an old sheet or shower curtain and we'll
load them in my small pick-up truck so I can rake them down into garden
beds or the bin.  I want leaves not contaminated with pet droppings.  I
can use  6-10 cubic yards per year, maybe more.  I've set up most of my
garden so that the mulched areas drain into low spots in the yard (so
keeping and filtering the nutrients from leaves in my garden, not the
Mississippi River.)

I'd be grateful for a neighbor nearby who would share un-needed leaves
with me.

It would be nice to start a system of P-to-P leaf sharing for like many
gardeners, I am leery of free government compost.  It's just too hard to
know what bacterias, diseases, and mildews this might bring into the
garden.  I prefer to make my own compost.  So I look for clean leaves,
free of mildew and pet droppings.  For all the folks out there with
excess clean leaves, check with the gardeners on your block especially
if you have oak leaves or pine needles (both acidic and needed in our
native soil which is usually registers highly basic on the ph scale).
You might find a gardener happy for your leaves and this might save you
the drudgery of bagging them up.

Sincerely,
Shawne FitzGera;d

David Brauer wrote:
> Kevin writes, of a no-plastic-leaf-bag law:
>
> Fascinating!  Do we get to start burning leaves again?
>  Raking them into the street?  Or will be forced to fill
> our yards with compost bins to accomodate all the leaves?
>
> Me:
>
> Our family - not through any threat of force - uses the large paper leaf bags
you get at a hardware store. The bags stay rigid and the top stays open better
(allowing for quicker loading), and they seem pretty impervious to rain in the
short term.
>
> Yes, they cost more than plastic bags, but may well lower the environmental
costs, since they are ultimately compostable like the leaves they contain. I'm
sure this will commence Round 1,000,000 of the paper-versus-plastic debate, but
my bigger point is that there's a very workable alternative to plastic that
doesn't involve burning or burlap.
>
>
> David Brauer
> Kingfield, Minneapolis
> Info about David Brauer: http://forums.e-democracy.org/contacts/brauerdavid
>
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