Leaves are falling fast in my neck of the woods, so I'm grabbing an hour here and there to rake them up. If I have the time I'll chop them up with the push mower and add them to my beds; if not, I toss them in whole.

How about Y'all? Do you like to add fallen leaves to your beds, or do you prefer to clean them out?

DH puts raked leaves in a pit & as they turn to compost puts them on the beds. Chopped leaves are better as big bunches of leaves can hold too much moisture.

We are just getting into leaf season here. I have a 5 hp shredder which I no longer use. At 72 its just too dangerous. We have a great recycle system here. There is a yard waste truck that comes around once a week. I buy finished compost for 10 dollars a truck load.

Its so windy here our leaves go somewhere else.We get a kartload of composted leaves from the town and spread that on the gardens.Its a year mature when we get it.

I rake them onto the flower beds.
Calgary has leaf and pumpkin drop off sites where these are collected and then composted.

If we pile ours up at the curb,the town comes for it.They have to be seperated tho, Garden debris,limbs ,branches are seperate from leaves.
Town residents can get a trailer and get their own from the town or there is a guy who will bring a load for $50.00 load is 5 yards.

Unless we can mulch ours, I just rake and bag them. Otherwise, they are just too thick and form a heavy mat that is not good for the plants. I have some areas where we get leaves at least 12" deep (sigh....) Mulched leaves are wonderful though, and I make sure to keep several large yard-bags full to use throughout the growing season.

Sounds good, Linda.

We had a dry autumn here, so we didn't get to save very many leaves; a lot of them just blew away. Most of the ones we did save are already in the beds. I'm actually beginning to feel ready for winter; hopefully, it'll be a snowy one.

Chelle: I want a snowy winter too.and a spring that comes as it's supposed to.

I never have enough leaves! I chop them up and pick them up with my lawnmower and mulch. It's a rural area so we don't have a composting place but there is a leaf and wood dump. I take a trailor and pickup and get a couple of loads. More if I get opportunity. I put stacks of bags around the small fruit trees so the deer don't get them. They had already started on them before I had a chance to get them this year. We also till them into our vegetable gardens in both spring and fall if there's opportunity. My husband fell of a scaffold when he saw working on our garage and shattered his wrist so I haven't had time to do much work in the garden so the tilling will have to wait till spring this time. I did go get leaves though

I hope that he heals rapidly.

Thanks, I hope so too cause sitting around isn't something that he does well.

Sue--sending healing thoughts to your husband.

I had my beds cleaned today by the guys that cut our yard. I'm so thankful not to have to spend hours and hours raking leaves out of my beds and digging them out of my shrubs and plants. I did bag up just enough that I'll use in the spring for mulching various things, and adding to my compost pile.

Leaves in by all means. They are full of nutrients and help protect things for winter.

Hi, Nancy!

to ATP and the Cottage Gardening forum. We're glad to have you join the fun!

oldherbacious said:

>> I buy finished compost for 10 dollars a truck load.

I'm envious!

Around here, "Cedar Grove Compost" gets town biosolids for free, plus municipally-collected yard waste (allegedly for free), then composts them a little more and LOADS it down with sawdust and wood products. It looks and smells like woody mulch.

But they sell it at huge prices by the bag, or around $30 per yard plus delivery charges that can add anything from another $30 to sky's-the-limit.

Maybe I shouldn't bash them more than anyone else. I recently saw an ad for $27 / yard sawdust, plus a $90 delivery fee. Maybe I just have trouble adjusting to inflation and urban prices, but that sholuldn't be an ad, that should be an apology!

Instead I buy big-box store bags of "manure mix" for $1.25 / cubic foot. It might be #35 per yard that waqy, plus my gas, but at least it isn;t 80-90 wood!

Linda said:
>> I have some areas where we get leaves at least 12" deep (sigh....)

If you can mix or even top-dress with something high in nitrogen, those might decompose down to 1-2" of humus in a month or two. For example, coffee grounds or fresh grass clippings.

It might even be worth it to buy a bag of urea (cheapest concentrated form of nitrogen, 46-0-0) and scatter it very thinly over those deep leaves.

That's a great suggestion, Rick. Unfortunately, the areas where my leaves fall most heavily are right over other shrubs and plants. They are so thick they just weigh everything down and actually splay the branches of the shrubs. My only recourse is to remove them. If I knew then what I know now, I would have seriously reconsidered my landscape plan

oldherbacious said:We are just getting into leaf season here. I have a 5 hp shredder which I no longer use. At 72 its just too dangerous. We have a great recycle system here. There is a yard waste truck that comes around once a week. I buy finished compost for 10 dollars a truck load.

Wow! That's great! We don't have that ( "I buy finished compost for 10 dollars a truck load" ) here.

Nancy!

Happy to have you at ATP and the cottage garden forum!

>> fall most heavily are right over other shrubs and plants

Ugh! Bad enough that leaves can smother grass,

I was going to ask if you can use a leaf blower to rescue the buried plants, but I see you have an even better method:

>> I had my beds cleaned today by the guys that cut our yard. I'm so thankful not to have to spend hours and hours raking leaves out of my beds and digging them out of my shrubs and plants.