Episode 48: Should You Rake Leaves? The Great Debate

About This Episode

In this week’s episode of Ask Grumpy, Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener, talks about planting fall vegetables and herbs. Plus, Grumpy’s Gripe of the Week.

Question Of The Week

We are about to fill our raised beds for planting fall vegetables and herbs. What soil mix should we use?

Grumpy Gardener Answer: That's a good question because it's a little bit different planting in containers or raised beds than it is planting in the ground. So I'm going to give you a general good recipe for the soil that you should put into your raised beds.

• First off, start with one part of a good topsoil. And not all topsoil is equal. When I'm buying topsoil from a garden center or a supplier, just kind of take a look, if you can, at the color of the soil. If it's kind of a dark gray or maybe even has a little brown in it, that's good. What I don't like is to see topsoil that's red because that means you got a lot of clay in there, and clay is not a good type of topsoil to be putting in containers. So, take a look at it and take your best guess and hopefully it'll turn out okay.
• Now you need to mix that with one part of organic matter. So that's going to mean 50% topsoil, 50% organic matter. Now, what's the organic matter? Well, lots of things can be your organic matter. You can use composted cow manure. You can use kitchen compost. You can use chopped leaves. You can make your 50% from all three of those and work those in good. And the reason why you want to put the organic matter in there is because it's going to loosen up the soil. It's going to make it easier for water to go down into the soil, but it also improve the drainage. It'll increase the fertility of the soil and stop it from getting so compacted. But also, it'll help the soil hold water. So, organic matter is basically just gold for any kind of growing conditions for your plants, but especially those in containers. So that's my recipe for raised beds.
  

Gripe Of The Week

Mow, don't rake fall leaves.

So, that's what I do. But apparently there is a writer for Southern Living who does the back page every month, named Rick Bragg. In the September Issue, he has an entire column devoted to rake or not rake. And he doesn't believe in raking. And he goes into this whole big spiel about Snoopy and diving into the pile of leaves... and how leaves are so beautiful and, you've got some sort of emotional issue if you rake your leaves and don't leave them right there. And this is what he says. I've circled these two paragraphs that apply to me. He says, "but the worst thing of all that happens when the leaves fall," he says, "please help me, somebody, is a device called a mulcher, which utilizes a screaming, spinning, steel mower blade to reduce the whole intact leaves to little bitty scraps. You've really got to hate something to chop it up into a thousand pieces. I remember reading that the Grumpy Gardener...in this very magazine, is actually an advocate for this cruel practice. But that does not surprise me at all. I know how he is. Someone obviously didn't hug that boy enough."

1. Anybody in the South knows we don't rake leaves in September because they're still on the trees. And you're not out there raking leaves, Rick. You're at Tuscaloosa watching the Crimson Tide destroy a division 6 team like Bunny State or something. So don't give me that stuff about you're out there raking. September's not the time, anyway.
2. Number two, you insulted my poor old mother. How could you do that? I'm about to go visit her, my mother is about to turn 101. I was hugged plenty of times.
3. When I advise people to mow the leaves that are on their lawn, it's generally because they want them gone. Now, most people will just blow them with their leaf blower into the curb and let them go down and clog up the sewers. But not me. I said, if you want to get the leaves off your lawn, take a mulching mower, chop them up into tiny bits – yes I did say that –  because those tiny bits will sift down through the grass onto the soil, they will decompose, and they will provide nutrients for the grass. I think healthy grass is a good thing. I don't know what kind of grass you prefer, Rick.
   But when it comes to gardening, you don't trash the Grumpy Gardener in the pages of Southern Living.
   

About Ask Grumpy

Ask Grumpy is a podcast featuring Steve Bender, also known as Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener. For more than 20 years, Grumpy has been sharing advice on what to grow, when to plant, and how to manage just about anything in your garden. Tune in for short episodes every Wednesday and Saturday as Grumpy answers reader questions, solves seasonal conundrums, and provides need-to-know advice for gardeners with his very Grumpy sense of humor. Be sure to follow Ask Grumpy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you don't miss an episode.

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.