Methods for shredding leaf material

I am currently living in a off grid situation with very limited electricity and I'm trying to limit bring external fuel sources onsite like gas. We use bucket system composting toilets which requires carbon input so I would like to use leaves since we live in a heavly wooded area but was concerned about the large sizes of the leaves making the system less effective. I was wondering if anyone knows of a method or tool for shredding leaves into smaller pieces that doesn't use anything besides hunanpower and that is faster then doing it by hand?

I live in a similar situation and did lots of research on human powered shredders. Came up with nothing. I did find an old pair of grass shears at an estate sale and find that they fit down into a 5 gallon bucket quite well. Fill the bucket 3/4 full of leaves, put the blades of the shears down into the bucket and cut vigorously,  stopping to mix up the leaves occasionally. Takes 2 minutes. Works well on dry leaves...damp leaves not so much. You can still buy grass shears new but the older style seems to be better made. Good Luck!

I don't, however for innovative tools, a good place to search is the farmhack website.

For instance, here is a bike powered thresher:

https://farmhack.org/tools/bicycle-powered-thresher

I used to manage a communal garden where we used a lot of leaf mulch. The best method we ever found was to wait until the leaves were dry, put a big armful into an old metal garbage can, then climb in and stomp them as if we were stomping grapes. It was effort, but not as much as using a hand tool to cut them because each step could crush a lot more leaves.

I really appreciate all of the quick feed back.

Is it possible for you just to mulch this up and wait?  I am not great at this (patience and planning!) but I made a couple of simple columns out of old fencing (8' diameter x 5').  I let nature break it down and use it from the bottom.  Would this work for you?

M Darmstadter wrote:Is it possible for you just to mulch this up and wait?  I am not great at this (patience and planning!) but I made a couple of simple columns out of old fencing (8' diameter x 5').  I let nature break it down and use it from the bottom.  Would this work for you?

I have a pretty quick turnover in carbon sources so I'm not sure that method would be fast enough for my needs.

How big of leaf are we talking here? I think if your nitrogen and carbon ratios are on point in your compost system and you’re turning, leaf size shouldn’t matter much.

Another question is, how fast are you trying to compass? I think any size leave, with maybe the exception of a palm leaf, should be fine If you’re patient. I’m assuming you’re talking about something large like maple leaves. If I was hard-core serious about it, I’d gather leaves in the fall or spring, plan to find a way To dehydrate them in the summer with sun power and then have a stomping party.

Jackie Dragon wrote: How big of leaf are we talking here? I think if your nitrogen and carbon ratios are on point in your compost system and you’re turning, leaf size shouldn’t matter much.

Another question is, how fast are you trying to compass? I think any size leave, with maybe the exception of a palm leaf, should be fine If you’re patient. I’m assuming you’re talking about something large like maple leaves. If I was hard-core serious about it, I’d gather leaves in the fall or spring, plan to find a way To dehydrate them in the summer with sun power and then have a stomping party.

I'm in a natural forest environment so I have a large mix of leaves large and small. It's going to be a slow compost with a initial heating process and then it will sit for over a year before I use it. My only issue with intact leaves is that it may no act as well as a biofilter to help with smells from the toilet.  We currently use sawdust which works well since it clings well to everything and doesn't leave large Air pockets.

What about using a trash can with a string trimmer?

Here is a thread with some ideas:

https://permies.com/t/40196/shred-leaves-mower

Could you build a very strong, narrow wooden box, pack the leaves in, and cut them with a sharp shovel or spade?  

Stomping them in a trash can is the easiest I know.  It is still a lot of work to move and smash enough to feed a toilet.  And they don't stop the smell nearly as well as sawdust.  I would still use a little sawdust if you can. Or biochar, adding char first really contains smells and makes a superior compost.

I guess I will have to try multiple methods and see which ones works best for our situation. Once we're out of our current load of sawdust it would make more sense to us to start trying to use something onsite since we have to bring the sawdust in from off site.