Leaves, leaves, leaves, what to do with them?

Our maples and oaks provide an abundance of leaves in the fall. We put them on our vegetable garden for added humus.  Do not put walnut tree leaves on your gardens. Raking and blowing leaves into large piles is part of preparing our garden for its long winter sleep.

Dumped pot soil

Earlier in the fall, we dumped soil from plant pots (the plants didn't survive the summer) on a new part of the vegetable garden.

Yesterday, we mowed down all of the standing plants in the garden. 
Today we used a big leave blower and made big piles of leaves.  Later this fall we will cover all of our hoop houses with poly to protect the potted material through the winter.  When we remove that poly in the spring, I always save some large pieces to use for a variety of purposes.  A piece of poly makes a great "drop cloth" for dragging a pile of leaves to the garden.

My grandson taught me several years ago that I can turn my leave rake with the tines up and push large piles of leaves onto the plastic sheet.  The sheet holds nearly the entire pile of leaves, then I can grab two corners and drag it to the garden.

We dumped many loads of leaves and then scattered them over the garden.  David will work them into the soil with a large tiller on the back of the tractor and they will decompose while the garden sleeps this winter.  Next spring, we will apply 12-12-12 fertilizer and work up the soil for our spring planting.