02-11-2010, 03:32 PM
I use real leaves also and here is my method. In the fall take your leaf blower and put it in reverse and suck up a pile of leaves. The vacuum will chop 'em up into small pieces. Spread your chopped up leaves on your wife's cookie sheets while she's at work. 3 hours in the oven at 250 degrees. Remove from oven and let cool for a half hour or a beer or two. Run a powerful magnet over the top of 'em to be on the safe side. Instead of the blender which I found to be a pain, use the food processor and fill it about 1/2 full of your baked leaves. Keep hitting the pulse switch until your satisfied with the fineness of your leaves. Store your new ground cover in a container and take it to your work area and return to the kitchen to clean up the cookie sheets, food processor and the debris you spilled on the floor and counter. 
As far as dirt goes: A couple shovel fulls get spread out on newspapers on the garage floor and then picked through for bugs, worms, seeds, stones, bits of bark and ancient Indian arrowheads. Break the clumps down with your hands. It is better to harvest your soil if it hasn't rained recently or been covered with 5 foot snowdrifts as it is now. Now, wait again till your wife pulls out to go to work and retrieve the same cookie sheets you used for the leaves. Crank up the oven to 250 and bake your dirt for as long as it takes to become as dry as the Sahara desert. 2 to 4 hours depending on the moisture content. Remove from oven and let cool while you frantically run around the house vacuuming, putting away laundry, emptying garbage cans, dusting the entertainment center and everything else you were supposed to do that day instead of playing the culinary railroad game. After the dirt has cooled significantly do the old magnet trick again. This time there is no need to dirty up the food processor or the blender. Instead break out the handy dandy flour sifter and a glass cake bowl. Sift your dirt over top of the bowl. A very fine powdery almost dust-like substance will fall through and into the bowl. This is now your HO or N scale "dirt". There will be a bunch of dirt that no matter how many times you sift it it will stay coarse and just lay on the bottom of your sifter screen. Don't ditch it! This stuff makes excellent talus and rock debris. Now, store your dirt away and go clean up your mess! The sifting process will certainly have left it's presence known on the counter, sink, cupboards and every nook and cranny of your kitchen! Don't forget to thoroughly wash the bowl ,sifter and cookie trays. ("hi honey I'm home!".....) Well, gotta go!!!
Matt
As far as dirt goes: A couple shovel fulls get spread out on newspapers on the garage floor and then picked through for bugs, worms, seeds, stones, bits of bark and ancient Indian arrowheads. Break the clumps down with your hands. It is better to harvest your soil if it hasn't rained recently or been covered with 5 foot snowdrifts as it is now. Now, wait again till your wife pulls out to go to work and retrieve the same cookie sheets you used for the leaves. Crank up the oven to 250 and bake your dirt for as long as it takes to become as dry as the Sahara desert. 2 to 4 hours depending on the moisture content. Remove from oven and let cool while you frantically run around the house vacuuming, putting away laundry, emptying garbage cans, dusting the entertainment center and everything else you were supposed to do that day instead of playing the culinary railroad game. After the dirt has cooled significantly do the old magnet trick again. This time there is no need to dirty up the food processor or the blender. Instead break out the handy dandy flour sifter and a glass cake bowl. Sift your dirt over top of the bowl. A very fine powdery almost dust-like substance will fall through and into the bowl. This is now your HO or N scale "dirt". There will be a bunch of dirt that no matter how many times you sift it it will stay coarse and just lay on the bottom of your sifter screen. Don't ditch it! This stuff makes excellent talus and rock debris. Now, store your dirt away and go clean up your mess! The sifting process will certainly have left it's presence known on the counter, sink, cupboards and every nook and cranny of your kitchen! Don't forget to thoroughly wash the bowl ,sifter and cookie trays. ("hi honey I'm home!".....) Well, gotta go!!!
Matt