Leaves a foot deep

in my garden beds-I put'em there! My first serious introduction of soil amendments for winter. Until our friend Kylaluaz can come over and look with me and talk to me about it, I want to talk to you, whoever goes all out in winter for soil vibrancy. Tell me everything-----

Patti, I 'mow' my leaves (run the lawn mower over them) in the fall to chop them up and then pile them on to put my beds to bed them down for winter. Looks nice and seems to work well.

That is what I have heard bonehead, but didn't do. I got 8 bags of small leaves, some kind of ash tree, that were already wet and compacted so I just used them that way. I was particullarly seeking small leaves so I wouldn't have to break them up.

That'll work. In the spring, you can cover the leaves with a compost mix for further breakdown (I buy mine by the truckload and use as a top dressing to keep the weeds down)

Leaves make an awesome compost. I shred mine (maple leaves by the ton) and not only do they decompose by summer next year, but they look gorgeous in the garden. Ash leaves should be OK by themselves, but when you start to get bigger (alder, cottonwood, maple) you really want to do some kind of shredding/mowing because the slugs just LOVE wet layered leaves.

Rarejem, how lucky you are to have so many maples. I have only a few and I agree that they make the prettiest blanket. I save the maple for my front beds and use alder and aspen (both rather non-descript gray but my abundant trees) for the rest. Although this year I had a hard time getting to the fallen leaves between rains so don't have as much as usual.

The mowing of the leaves seems a really excellent thing but is quite dependent on timing. They have to be dry I guess and so the weather and our schedules have to coincide. Bonehead, I'm really trying to be self sufficient here and not pay for amendments. You and Rarejem sound very experienced with this leaf business. I'm new although I've been a believer in feeding the soil forever. I was thinking of getting a blower/vac and shredding leaves that way. Any input on them?

I do feel fortunate to have lots of maples for making mulch. They are a lovely color compared to the alder. The down side of the maples of course is the little whirly birds that are EVERYWHERE trying to make baby maples....

Patti, I have tried the blower/vac thing and gave up in the first two weeks. Now I stick to mowing or my flowtron leaf eater. Wet leaves are the problem, and the blower vac got horribly gummed up if the leaves weren't perfectly dry. My flowtron is much more forgiving, but I still have to fuss quite a bit if the leaves are wet. The concept of the flowtron is basically a "weed eater in a cannister", and I have heard several people talk about doing something similar with a regular weed eater and a metal garbage can. If I would have heard that before I spend the $$ on the flowtron, I would have tried it first to save the money. The leaves are definitely the easiest to deal with when they are dry, and in our climate a lot of times that means raking them one day, putting them in dry storage for a few days on a tarp, etc, and then mulching them when they won't plug up your equipment. Kind of a pain, but the final result is well worth it IMHO.

I don't mind raking wet leaves, I am down to the little trees now, and the compact the compost pile nicely.

"Our friend Kylaluaz" is right envious of all those leaves, since I have not yet had the chance to even begin to prepare for Spring the way I want to........ but in the spirit of the season, here's a good link to a recent blog post I liked, about the various opinions on how to use dead leaves and why it is not a one-size-fits-all kinda thing:

http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2010/11/ranting-about-dead-leaf-advice.html

Kyla pit and mound gardening sounds about right, thanks for the link. Those leaves are piled in the pathways between raised beds. From reading that article I am inspired to just leave as is in the spring and let the pathways be in situ compost around the beds, if that makes sense. I brought in the food and nature will do the rest. At least that is how I am going to proceed. Not sure if that was what you were suggesting I read but there is a huge amount of info there. I want more leaves!!!!!