@RickCorey
If I go out to collect my oak leaves from BJ's place before this year's leaves have dropped, I am collecting aged oak leaves. After the leaves have fallen, BJ rakes the areas where they are active around her house and hauls them to a part of her property that is kind of out of the way, but near the road she uses for her quad.
In our climate, the leaves sit there through our colder winter with 25 to 50 inches of rain and periodic snow and through the high temps of our summer. By the time I go to collect the leaves, they have broken down to the point where I do not need to shred them.
The fresh oak leaves are from my neighbor's trees which blow into my yard. The neighbor above me has been removing his junk pine trees and leaving the oaks to make his place more fire safe. The neighbor next door removed four pines, too, and now leaves from both of their properties are landing in my garden.
In years past, I've never had an issue in the garden when I did use fresh oak leaves, but they were shredded when I put them down, so they broke down faster than unshredded leaves would ... if they stayed put.
I have a no-till garden, so I've never dug the leaves into the gardening beds. I don't know if that would make a difference.
Smiles,
Lyn
