Retired Palmerston North caretaker Alistair Cameron urges everyone to turn a new leaf

Alistair Cameron has a challenge for everyone who lives near a deciduous street tree - pick up the leaves.

The leaves are full of nutrients and should be added to your compost bin, the 80-year-old Palmerston North resident says.

As part of the Long-term Plan consultation, Cameron has written to Palmerston North City Council and Horizons Regional Council asking them to educate people to clear street gutters and stormwater drains.

He has been picking up leaves that collect outside his West End house for about 45 years.

If leaves aren’t picked up regularly from gutters and berms they get trapped under driveway grates and sit there until heavy rain flushes them out. But these clumps can then block stormwater drains sending water over the road.

He has six compost bins into which he adds not just leaves but food scraps, branches and lawn clippings.

He starts a fresh bin with a layer of dry compost as an activator then adds a handful of lime. Next comes twigs and thin branches, then leaves, kitchen waste and grass. On top goes blood and bone then more leaves.

Don’t throw in a whole orange or apple as the worms won’t be able to eat it - the smaller the better. “It’s like me eating that house,” Cameron said pointing to a three-bedroom house.

He has a wooden stirring stick to aerate the compost, helping it to break down.

When the bin is full hose the contents with water then add 10cm of soil to keep the flies away.

Cameron said the compost must be moist; if it is too wet or dry the worms won’t work their magic.

People can also use a commercial activator.

Cameron applies his compost to his vegetable garden. Many vegetables are gross feeders, especially rhubarb. “They like plenty of compost, they will eat anything.”

Palmerston North resident Alistair Cameron makes his own compost with leaves a vital ingredient. Photo / Judith Lacy

Black walnut, horse chestnut, oak, holly and eucalyptus leaves are not suitable to compost due to their chemical makeup. Cameron also recommends avoiding bamboo, flax and cabbage leaves due to the time they take to decompose.

If you going to use compost around kumara and potato plants omit the lime as it sweetens the soil and these root vegetables like acid compost, he said

An alternative to composting is trenching the leaves so that when spring arrives they have broken down and are adding nutrients to the soil.

Cameron’s street is lined with silver birches, trees with high branches that don’t hinder motorists’ visibility. But every autumn they drop their leaves so out comes the broom and bags.

The retired school caretaker is also encouraging the council to plant evergreen trees in new subdivisions but not near driveways as they could obstruct drivers’ sightlines.

But mostly he wants everyone to turn a new leaf by picking up one leaf or 100.

Cameron said there are three things in life we cannot avoid: taxes, death and rubbish.

“We have to make rubbish work for us.”

Judith Lacy has been the editor of the Manawatū Guardian since December 2020. She graduated from journalism school in 2001 and this is her second role editing a community paper.