Chop-and-drop is an extremely satisfactory technique that involves trimming trees or plants and dropping the branches on the ground to feed other plants. It’s a forest-inspired principle of on-site composting that I learned from Geoff Lawton, a permaculture guru. In a forest, trees lose their leaves, which fall on the ground. Mushrooms, microorganisms, insects and earthworms break down the leaves and make the nutrients accessible to the tree. The latter grows and its leaves grow back. And the cycle goes on year after year. After a while, the tree itself gets older, falls, and decomposes. It makes room for other trees that then receive more sunlight to grow and perpetuate the forest. It’s an infinite loop!
Chop-and-drop is a way for humans to accelerate the life cycle, in order to grow a food forest faster, for example. You can plant pioneer tree species that capture nitrogen from the air, fix it in the soil and grow quickly, and then cut them heavily in late summer and put the branches at the foot of the fruit trees that you want to grow. Examples of nitrogen-fixing trees in Canada include sea buckthorn, honey locust, and black locust.
They are sometimes considered as invasive species, but that’s okay because you’re going to sacrifice them anyway. Other types of plants such as clover or comfrey are also used for this purpose. You grow them close to the trees you want to feed, then you cut them and put the leaves at the base of the trees. That way, you save steps and energy, because you don’t have to take those plants to the compost pile, turn the compost, and then bring the finished compost back to the plants.
I’ve even expanded this technique to pulling “weeds” and putting them under the plants I want to feed. It creates easy and free green mulch! Incognito, I hide under my hostas most of the weeds I pull (dandelions, vetch, horsetail, etc.). And my hostas are HUGE! They really seem to like it!
I do that everywhere when I weed, even in my garden: I pull the undesirable plant out and drop it there. It will not take root again. It will dry in the sun and decompose. Be careful, however, that the plant does not carry seeds, because otherwise you will sow them everywhere!
In short, if you pick up your grass clippings, pick up your branch trimmings, pick up your leaves in the fall, and send everything to the city composting centre, or worse, to the landfill, what’s going to happen? You will exhaust your soil. And you’ll have to add fertilizer to replace the nutrients. Or your plants will wither. Mimic the forest instead. Make a loop. Return the surplus to the system. You too can help save the world, one tree at a time.
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