Jan. 17: Autumn's gone, now `leave' me alone

By Larry Berteau

It's but little good you'll do watering last year's crops. - George Eliot

Why do we rake leaves?

I've tested this theory, and it's the real deal. If you leave them alone, they'll go home. I don't know where that is, but they flat leave.

Granted, raking leaves has benefits beyond the mere removal of the digitately compounded critters. It's a golden opportunity to check out that new plaid shirt. It provides a moment of neighbor envy - but only if you're first. For a man, you can beam as you romp with the rake, impressing a wife, girl friend, jogger, mailman, or whatever fertilizes your spirit. For a woman, it's a good test for spandex, or hair spray, or waterproof sneakers, or any of the man-things mentioned above with any exception you care to invoke.

Branching out

But there's no evidence that it does any particular good, unless you include a form of income for landfill folks, and a yearly purchase at the hardware store. No one rakes the leaves in the forest, and it does all right. Leaves fall out of trees into rivers and provide cover for beavers, otters, trout and otherwise wash to the sea. Leaves blow onto freeways and disappear. And you've never seen one in the desert.

So it goes with leaves on our lawn. I've raked in the fall, and I've not raked, and the only real difference I see is they disappear into a hefty bag when I rake, then hang around for weeks; or they disappear into thin air after a few weeks when I don't rake.

They're like the rubber that wears off tires. They just vanish. Poof. Off they go to join the land of single socks. (I've been told that's somewhere near Minnesota.)

Pardon my mulching

And there's no retribution. In the spring, the grass comes back - whether you rake or not. There's some evidence that the un-raked lawn comes back with renewed enthusiasm, but the defense of this assumption is too arduous to tackle.

Consequently, I've concluded that not raking is the way to go. Leave the leaves be, is the Berteau motto. It saves on implements, plastic bags, runs to the dump, remembering when that one-week window is when you can have them picked up for free, and most of all - MULCHING.

Consider the word. It sounds like a rude, deep-throated emission of an animal with multiple stomachs.

Why would anyone mulch on purpose? Mulching sounds more like something your doctor would insist removing from your regimen.

"Well Mr. Berteau," doc intones. "We have to work on that cholesterol count (Don't you love how doctors make it sound like a joint project), eat more fresh fruit, exercise, and kick the mulching!"

"OK, doc," I say. "I swear. I've mulched for the last time."

There's no chance I'm going to sneak an occasional mulch. How could I explain it to my son if I got caught?

"Oh, son, it's not how it looks. I'm just rearranging the colors in the backyard. I'll put them back when I'm through."

(Knowing wink.)

Fiddle sticks

A spinoff of mulching is fertilizer. Guess what some of the ingredients are? You got it. Plant and vegetable matter. Leaves!

Is there any endeavor more self-defeating than raking leaves, stuffing them in bags, carting them off to a landfill, then trotting off to a store a few months later to buy them back?

Talk about futile gestures.

As a pal of mine says of such profitless undertakings: I'd rather poke sticks in my eyes.

Rosy glasses

Now that I've revealed myself as the President, Vice-President and Sergeant-at-arms of the Mulchless Society of Non-gardeners, allow me to solidify my platform.

If you don't rake, you get to keep the colors longer, and enjoy colors you'll never see if you do rake.

And isn't that what life's all about? The colors?

Larry Berteau is editor of The Tidings.