What do you do with fall leaves?

I just leaf them be.

i think mulching is a better idea than compost piles. i have read some articles before that say compost piles are not always a good idea.
i personally think its better to do it natures way and just leave them where they are.
Isaac

What is the negative issue with composting? I can't think of one.

I use the leaves to mulch my gardens and then compost them in the spring!

I mow over them, using the bag on our lawn mower to collect, then scatter them over the flower beds. Any extras go in the compost pile or on my raised veggie beds.

Usually this is a tiresome chore, but we got a new electric mower this spring. No more endless, repeated cranking to restart the mower after I've emptied the leaf bag each time...yey!

My goats love them!

Woofie; I think my goats would love them too. Maybe I'm too stingy by putting them all on the garden. lol
I think I'll let them have some, thanks!
Russ

I don't get a ton of fall leaves, but the ones I do have get shredded up and used as mulch.

Russ, check to make sure your leaves are ok for goats to eat. Ours are some sort of cottonwood; not sure about other trees. But, boy do they come running for them. When the wind blows in the right direction in the fall, the goats come running to snarf those leaves. We scoop them up with the lawnmower and dump them over the fence, too.

Woofie; The majority of my leaves are Sugar Maple and Chinese Elm. I do have Black Walnut as well but I usually burn those before putting the ash on the garden.
I don't know if they would bother the goats but I have enough other stuff for them.
I gathered all the sweet corn stalks from a friends garden as well as from mine. I am running the stalks through my chipper shredder. Then I give them peelings and apple cores, watermelon rinds that I can't make pickles out of. They really go crazy over pear peelings. Too bad I can't have them all winter. The fallen apples are too big for them to get in their mouth, so I usually toss them in the leaf part on my shredder but that makes a mess in the catch bag.

I only have one very young maple in my yard, but my parents bring me about 8-10 huge garbage bags full of mulched maple leaves, many of which go into my compost bins. Yesterday my next door neighbor was mowing, bagging, and then BURNING his leaves, so I offered to take them off his hands for him. He was only too glad to give them to me! He thinks I'm some sort of wack-o, though. He thought the compost bins were my trash barrels, and that my rain barrels had something to do with wine-making. LOL Yes, I attach huge 50 gallon drums to my downspouts to make wine. ^_^

I do mulch my veggie and flower gardens with mulched leaves, too. It really keeps the weeds down, and makes a good base layer to go under the wood chips I top off the beds with.

Angie

Hey Angie; I've been thinking about making some wine, with the excess of fruit and berries that Ive gathered; but rain barrel wine hmmm that has quite a ring to it.
LOL

Since our house is smack in the middle of the woods, we just rake them off the driveway and back into the woods. A few years later, voila! Rich topsoil!

HA! Angie, that is FUNNY!

Yeah, I'd have to strain all the dead bugs and bits of shingle out of it before I bottled it up. ^_^

Angie

Angie couldn't you just leave the bugs and bits of shingle in it?Then you could call it a health drink, as it has protein and fiber. Yucky

[snort!] I bet the FDA would crack down on me for false health claims.

I suppose it IS a health drink. . .for my PLANTS!

Just got one of those leaf mulcher things (stand alone or put on top of garbage can) this year as a birthday present. Still waiting for my leaves to fall to give it a whirl.

~Sharon

Angie thats a hoot. Read your post about the compost bins and rain barrels to dh and he even laughed and asked what planet did your neighbors move here from.

Leaves get chopped up with last mowing of yard and the mulch goes around my trees and in flowerbeds except for the few my 7 y/o grandson and I rake and burn because he likes to "scrape leaves with Ta." He enjoys the bonfire and hot chocolate while we watch it burn.

I do nothing with mine. Are you kidding me......I live on 200 acres most of which is woods.....

Deann

Just think what great memories you are making Twinkielee.....maybe even starting a new tradition for your grandson to carry on.

He's making the great memories for me, themoonhowl. One day he'll have other more exciting things to do than rake leaves with me but I bet he'll remember the fun we had. His dad still talks about helping me plant "those big red flowers" when he was about that age. :-)

And they will be precious to you both....grin

Like many of you, I either leave them where they fall, or if they must be collected, they go to curbside recycling where the city takes them to the mulch area.

FYI, if you live in my city, county or most of my state, BURNING LEAVES IS PROHIBITED. It's air pollution. I know b/c I'm sensitive to air pollution and my neighbor keeps breaking the law and burning his leaves making me very ill. Texas like many states has serious air quality issues, leaf burning just adds to the problem.

Well said Elphaba! Agree 100%!

Resin

Love the screen name, Elphaba!!!!!!!!

I blow my leaves out of the flower beds and off of the decks out to the lawn where they are chopped up when we mow. If I have a pile of chopped leaves, I will put it on the garden. My lawn was always green even through the hottest summer since I had the best, most well fed soil in the neighborhood.

I second Resin.

I live in the woods. Except for a few places they stay where they fall. I have a natural self placing mulch.

I leave them: it's a natural way of fertilizing the soil

I live in an apartment so we don't have leaves to worry about. I've never done a compost pile and I don't have the space for that either. :(

We have a wooded area so don't get all the leaves raked. They go into a compost pile in the woods. Decay faster if the lawn mower is run over them. Many people intown bag them & have them picked up. Those go into a town compost pile (I think). People who are not gardeners, but 'lawners' find leaves a nuisance.

I use mine for a winter protection on my unplanted landscape plants. In the spring they are mowed back into organic material as its ment to be IMO...

Reading all the entries above, it seem that everyone mulches their plants and trees for winter. We do not have snow or frost here, so plants do not need protection. In Malta it is the other way round. We do that in summer. From April to September we do not get a drop of rain. So we mulch to conserve the water in the soil. As to fallen leaves, those that fall on soil are left there, and those that fall on the paths are swept up and composted.After we prune our 8 vines and other bits of twigs and thick flower stalks, we leave them to dry and they they go through the shredder, and again used as summer mulch.

Those darn HOA communities. They do put ordinances on everything... There is one trick around them. Find out who the families on the boards are. I have found that being in my line of work even they break the rules. It is often overlooked because they hold just enough umph (power) with the people they think they can get away with it. But I guarentee that the ones with the prettiest yards have a compost or humus bin in their yard. You have to be just nice enough to get in and discover it. When you put yours in and someone discovers it. They will push it under the carpet because they know they have one also. It is in the bylaws and is not allowed. Usually It is the ones that say you can not that already have theirs set up. I have people down here calling the HOAs Natures Gastapo.

Other - Mulching blades on the mower and they feed the lawn!

I voted other too.
My goats also get the bulk , what they don't eat makes good bedding.

mine go over my flower beds and all around the house foundation.. insulation and compost all in one.. I do use a few in the compost pile, but most of them blanket my near tropicals here in Kansas, and I don't take them off until I see at least ten inches of new growth peeking thru in the spring, and then sometimes I wait a little longer , since we always seem to get a Late Freeze by surprise.. most everything that comes from my yard stays in my yard.