I don’t have any large deciduous trees on my property, so fall leaf clean-up isn’t an issue for me. But I wish it was. Leaves are valuable! I cringe when I see leaves thrown away in regular garbage (green waste is okay if you have to). Why? Well, because they are free organic matter. And organic matter is key to good soils and gardens.

How to you transform fall leaves into good soil? Here are some ideas for using them:

1)Mow. The year I did landscaping for a condo HOA, I raked only a small section of leaves. For the most part, I’d shred them up with the mower and leave them. I did it about three different times, so I never had over a couple of inches of leaves on the ground at any one time. The leaves nicely decomposed in the ground. It was super easy. This works really well for fine leaved trees like honeylocust (sometimes you don’t even have to mow those), but will also work with the thicker leaves like maples as long as you don’t let the leaves get too thick.

2)Mulch. This year, I piled the leaves nice and high around some spireas. I needed mulch there, and fall leaves are free. About any landscape area can use a good helping of leaves. Shredding the leaves will help them decompose faster, if that’s what you want. Leaving them large can work as a good weed deterrent.

3)Compost. Leaves are great in a compost pile. They are a good high-carbon material. I put a video below that talks more about composting with leaves.

4)Annual Garden. This is probably the most common use I see: adding a nice layer of leaves to the garden. Most people till it in, either in the spring or fall. I don’t like tilling, and instead just leaving the leaves on top and using them as mulch in the spring.

One of my actual fears in life is at some point I’m going to have a lot of leaves and some kind person will feel the need to rake them up and haul them away for me. I’ve worked on service projects where we raked up all the lovely organic matter out of landscape beds and hauled it away.  I love leaves and firmly believe that they are far too valuable to end up in the trash!

Here’s someone else who loves leaves: