The Burning Incinerator

The biggest problem anyone with trees faces is disposing of dry leaves. It is an ongoing process. Apart from using leaves for mulching there still remain heaps that need attention.
We have an incinerator that burns the dry leaves and produces ash that is a great fertilizer. Care is taken nothing else such as plastics is put in there but just dry leaves.
The emitting smoke is high enough that does not interfere with one's breathing. The smoke also helps to kill mosquitoes.

 

The compost pits get their share. We have several fruit trees and there is surplus that we need to clear. The incinerator comes to our aid. Since they are pure leaves the air does not get polluted and as mentioned in my post the mosquitoes get a bad deal.

 

I leave most of the leaves on the ground for mulch, and scoop them up as needed for tinder. Of course I don't have neighbors who gripe about the leaves staying on the ground all winter...but, as tinder, when they're good and dry, leaves are more Earth-friendly than junkmail.

(I do, however, burn junkmail. I have cooked pots of rice on junkmail alone when the weather was so damp that nothing natural would burn!)

 

There is no guarantee that leaves left on the ground will not get rain and when they get wet they attract mosquitoes. Burning junkmail is interesting. Is there so much that you get that you can cook rice with junkmail?

 

Strictly speaking, not junkmail alone as a regular thing, although that is the vast majority of what fills up the mailbox. Waste paper, generally, yes.

 

Isn't that.. bad habit? Do you live near the city? In our town, it is illegal to burn and make huge smokes.
If a neighbor finds out, they will eventually call the public safety office or the police.

 

In rural Virginia it's legal to burn stuff in a barrel at any time of year, in an open fire during the wetter seasons (which are most of the year).

I feel some enviro-guilt because I used to burn trash in an indoor stove, with a filter for the smoke, but one day I (stupidly) let a chimney fire destroy the filter and also the metal chimney liner. When I get the money I'll replace those. Meanwhile, if neighbors did object to the smoke I could legally say it's their fault for not hiring me to do more jobs and earn more money...but they're unlikely to object since they burn trash outdoors too.

 

Hello everyone! I'm new here but know some things about surviving. Growing up my father and I used to go out into the woods with nothing but a knife and some iodine for a week at a time to learn how to survive off the land. The new burning laws imposed by the EPA are soon to take full effect.

There's this new up-coming company that makes this residential incinerator. The company is called Nobullim and they are based in Northwest Ohio. Their website isn't up yet but I'm good friends with the owner and he sounds like he means to do good with these residential incinerators.

 

I usually just mow them and leave them on the yard. If there are too many for that I pile them up and burn them. A lot of people in the country have burning barrels and burn most of their garbage. During the summer we ocassionally have burning bans when it is dry but that is seldom a problem in the fall.

Burning leaves and wood has no effect on the carbon dioxide levels so I don't see why the EPA cares. The leaves and wood will release exactly the same amount of CO2 if allowed to rot. Trees take the CO2 in the air and use the carbon to make wood and release the oxygen. When they die the process is reversed as the carbon is again oxidized and returns to the air.

 

+1

I let them be nutrition for next year.

 

By mowing them and leaving them you are returning part of what they had taken from the ground whence it came. In part this is a regional thing. We have to mow the grass even into November some years and then start again in April so it is easier than raking and then mowing. A mulching mower turns dry leaves into almost dust.

 

As a boy, we'd have HUGE amounts of leaves. After compost needs, we'd burn a manageable fire and rake-in more as we went.

It's not just for the compost, either. At the bottom of a compost pile, there are worms, huge night-crawlers, that truly nourish the soil -- has to do with the bacteria in the worm's gut tube. And you can pluck some worms with which to fish. My maternal grandfather would place planks over rot to raise worms for our fishing needs. It gets warm under a compost pile due to all of the organic chemical reactions.

My mom's folk, raised tiered gardens (mountain country big time) until they got up into their late 80's.

If the soil is too acid, or needs potassium and phosphorus, then you can burn some leaves right on your garden space -- not too much, watch out about this or you'll get the ground too alkaline.

You might be able to burn leaves and have the beginnings of the making of soap. To make lye soap, you start with hardwood ashes, but I guess if you have a hill of burnt leaves, that just might work also. One could always try. Ashes are ashes. "Waste not want not."
https://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/how-to-make-soap-from-ashes-zmaz72jfzfre