Whatever you do, don’t leave them out on the curb in big black bags, or put them in your trash can. Fall leaves are free fertilizer and organic matter, and are beautiful.

1. Give them to a gardening friend (like me)
2. Shred by going over them with a lawn mower
3. Leave shredded leaves on lawn
4. Use shredded leaves as a mulch for planting beds
5. If they are in a planting area, you can leave them be
6. Till or dig them into to an annual planting bed
7. Add to or start a compost pile
8. Take to local green waste
9. Let your kids jump in them, or better yet, go jump in them yourself
10. Make fall crafts featuring leaves

This picture is from a few years ago. In this area, I mowed all the leaves and simply left the leaf mulch there. You can see this area was thickly covered by leaves. Super thick piles might need to be used elsewhere, but I found that by doing it a couple different times over the course of leaf fall meant no raking. Leaving the leaves there without shredding/mowing can result in lawn death. Which might not be a bad thing, I’m a big fan of reducing lawn.