This free leaf mold planner helps you turn autumn leaves into leaf mold with a bag or bin plan, wetting dates and a ready date a year later. Leaf mold is the dark, crumbly conditioner that woodland soil makes for free, and it improves clay and sandy soils alike without any smell or effort. It runs fully in your browser, so nothing you type is sent to a server. You need no account and no sign-up to use it.
Leaf mold holds water like a sponge and feeds soil life slowly, which is exactly what tired beds need. Buying bagged conditioner every year costs real money, while a leaf pile turns a waste problem into a free soil builder with almost no work.
To use the tool, fill in the boxes on screen and press the calculate button. You can change any number and calculate again as often as you like. The result updates at once, so you can test different plans side by side and see which one fits your garden best.
For example, take 10 bags of 100 litres started on 28 October 2026, with a wetting check every month. The tool shows 1,000 litres of leaves, 12 wetting checks in a year, and a ready date of 28 October 2027. Check every 3 months instead and the plan drops to 4 checks.
Start leaf mold in autumn, when leaves fall thick and fast, and let winter rain do much of the wetting for you. By the next autumn the bags hold a dark, sweet-smelling conditioner, right when beds need mulch before winter again.
Tip: Shred leaves before bagging if you can. Shredded leaves rot in about a year, while whole leaves can take two years to break down.
Tip: Wet the leaves well at the start. Dry leaves in a sealed bag simply sit there, because fungi need moisture to work.
Tip: Punch a few small holes in each bag. The holes let rain in slowly and stop the bag from turning into a sealed, soggy lump.
The most common mistake is bagging dry leaves and forgetting them. A year later the bag still holds dry, rustling leaves, because nothing moist ever reached them. Wet leaves at the start, and check them at least a few times a year.
Common question: Is leaf mold the same as compost? No. Leaf mold is made by fungi from leaves alone, while compost mixes many materials with bacteria and heat.
Common question: Can I use it on seedlings? Yes. Leaf mold is gentle and low in nutrients, so it suits seed trays and young plants well.
Common question: Do I need to turn leaf mold? No. Turning helps compost, but leaf mold works best left alone, moist, and undisturbed.
Gardeners with big trees, allotment holders drowning in autumn leaves, and no-dig growers who mulch heavily use leaf mold. It also helps anyone who pays to remove leaves each autumn and would rather keep the value at home.
Keep a note of your pile dates and results through the season. After a few months you will see which mixes heated fastest and which plans finished on time. That record is worth more than any guess, because it comes from your own garden and your own waste.
Before you build the pile, read your plan once as if you were doing it tomorrow. Do you have the browns, the space, and the dates clear? If anything looks unclear, fix that line before you start. A plan that needs no guesswork works far better than a bigger plan that confuses you.
This tool is free to use as often as you like. Bookmark it and come back whenever you start a new pile or plan a harvest. A clear plan helps you compost with less smell, fewer flies, and more finished compost for your beds.
Remember that every result here is an estimate for home composting, not professional advice. Your local climate, your waste mix, and your bin type all shape the real result, so use the tool as a starting point and adjust it to your own garden.