all the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey...

Imagine, if you will, a line stretching from the Amazon rainforest (lotta trees – no grass), to the steppes of Russia (lotta grass – no trees). Somewhere on the middle of that line is me standing in an orchard in Cardiff (some trees, some grass), raking up leaves. Grassland is fussy and will only persist if it is regularly grazed either by animals or lawnmowers, (or me with a scythe). Also, if I allow the fallen leaves to lie,they will kill the grass underneath. - not in a vicious hand to hand battle, just with a gentle suffocating sigh.

Now I’m talking about a lot of leaves here, because as well as the fruit trees, the garden is flanked by a stand of mature beeches. Last year I grumpily raked them up, wheel-barrowed them out through the gate and dumped them back underneath the trees.

It was a gesture designed to say ‘There you go – you can have them back!’ 

A bit like throwing your neighbour’s cat poo back over the fence...

( - not that I would ever do that). 

I’m not sure if the trees noticed. 

Then, when February rolled round and it came time to build the hotbed, a bit of research in Beeton’s Book of Garden Management, suggested that beech leaves would be the perfect filling ingredient for those finding themselves a little short of fresh horse manure. So back out through the gate I went, and sheepishly barrowed in as many as I could be bothered to rake up.

Again, to their credit, the trees ignored me. 

(I told you they were mature).

So this year I’m trying to ‘turn my frown upside down’ (barf), and view the deluge of leaves as the ‘delivery’ that I ordered for February. I’m raking them into holding piles between the compost heaps, where they’ll gradually reduce in volume till I’m ready to use them to build the hotbed. After nearly a week off work with a bad back, it feels good to be out and about doing something so satisfyingly seasonal.