q Fall is here an

reminding you all of impending doom, gloom, and labori-
ous gardening tasks, I wish to point out that the sky is

_ falling — or soon wil! be.
You are free to call me Chicken
Little, in fact you can call me
anything you like as long as you
don’t call me to heip rake up your
: fallen leaves. Falling leaves may
“. mot cause the same degree of
‘ panic as our frightened fryer’s
; falling skies, but it does hold the

-potential for terrors,

“. “It’s game seven of the World
- ’ Series, the Jays are up to bat in
_ the ninth inning of a tie game and
the wife hands you the leaf rake;
eck! Or, it’s a beautiful Sunday
morning, the weatherman has
_ promised this will be the last good

..: day of the year; you ease into the.

| storage room to sneak -out with

. your golf bag only to discover .

that your putter has been replaced
by the leaf rake. : moe

.. Now, what: do you suppose you
are going to do with all of those
leaves?. You certainly weren’t con-

sidering. putting them in plastic’
‘bags and dumping them out on

the street, were you? In these days
of. waste | management, proper
‘recycling. procedures and. en-
vironmental consciousness, - sen-
ding your garden’ waste to the
dump could be considered a crim-
inaloffense. 9.5 =. 2. +,
‘Even though I hate to. spoil the
orose. tone Of this article, I- must
admit that there is an up side to
our current. predicament. Com-
‘posting not only saves the tax-
payer (that’s: us, folks) by reduc-

ing the cost of collecting garbage,
but also puts dollars directly into

our pockets by manufacturing the
best available form of: amend-

ments. and « nutrients . for -our.

warden, : . /
» Until fairly ‘recently, I was able

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‘OVER THE GARDEN GATE

‘to. the gloomy. side by asking

where you planned to dispose of
the coarser stuff. Such items as
smaller branches, woody staiks
from robust vegetables and

‘perennials, blackberry vines and

other coarse clutter from the
garden always presented its own
brand of disposal problems at the
end of the year. You couldn’t very
well put it in the compost; nobody
really likes chunky style. The only
thing left was to burn it. 1 can
remember the good old days,
when those lazy, crazy days of

“summer gave. way to those hazy,

smoke-filled days of. fall; it was
enough to. bring tears :to. your

eyes. : . .
- Now we have shred-

der/chippers.: Smart-ass machines -

that conveniertly turn all of the
above-mentioned dif-
ficultly-dealt-with materials into

so much organic fodder, perfect
to feed into the compost or dig
straight into the garden. They are
generally comprised of a cylin-
drical drum housing a rack of
heavy steel tlades or hammers,
which spin loosely around the in-
side. As material is fed into the
unit, the hammers mash it up into
smaller and smaller pieces until
they are tiny enough to fit
through the screen over the exit
chamber. The above-mentioned
‘hammer mill’ shredders are
preferred over those that utilize
sharpened blades to do the mill-
ing. The blades quickly become
dull and the units become useless.

As mentioned, smaller, finger-
sized branches, brush and leaves
are ideal for the shredder, but
what about the bigger stuff? Well,
this is where the chipper comes in.
It is usually at the end of a
smaller hopper which feeds in
from the side. The high-speed
blades are designed to ‘chip’
branches of up to 3 inches in di-
ameter into smaller, more man-
ageable cizes. These can be further
reduced in the shredder along with
some other compostable material,
or spread over the garden as a
mulch (Ugh!).

The chipper should not feed di-
rectly into the shredder; this situa-
tion generally results in increased
wearing of the chipper blades.
You should also be sure to get a
reasonably powerful machine
Qook for something with at least &
horse power).

Whenever you are using ma-
chinery -such as this, it is best to

‘keep the image of what your hand

(or should I say stump) would
fook like if. you fed it into the
machine. These are nasty, dan-

‘gerous machines and should be .

handled with extreme care. See
how I artfully ended things on 2
gloomy note? .

Sw

October 11, 1991 ~ North Shore News

” "pe

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