3 min readGolden yellow, vivid red, and bright orange fall foliage is one of the best parts of the autumn season. When the leaves fall off the trees and into your yard, though, they don’t look as charming—especially when it’s time to rake them into piles. Instead of putting fallen leaves into trash bags and taking them to the landfill, use them to your advantage and set your yard up to be beautiful and lush in the spring.
Keep reading to find seven things you can do with raked leaves besides throwing them away.
Additional copy by Meghan Shouse.
Mow Over Your Leaves
If your leaf layer is less than one inch thick, you can mow over leaves, breaking them up to add nutrients back to your lawn. Let leaves dry as much as possible, then go over them with a mower. A mulching mower, which keeps grass particles suspended to be recut into tiny pieces, is best. For a non-mulching mower, you can do a second pass at a right angle to chew the leaves up into small particles.
If you aren’t sure what kind of mower you have, search online for your model number. You can also change the regular blades to mulching blades on some mower models.
Create Coverage for Wildlife
According to the National Wildlife Federation, you can rake leaves into garden beds to provide winter cover for beneficial insects, spiders, turtles, toads, and small mammals that spend the cold months under leaf litter. Moths and butterflies may also remain in their chrysalis stage in underbrush until they emerge next year. Keep these leaves whole for better coverage.
Collect Your Leaves for Mulch
Use your mower’s bag attachment, or rake the leaves into a pile, then run them over with the mower a few times, as described above. You can then use the shredded leaves as mulch around shrubs and perennials, according to the University of Delaware. A two- to three-inch layer is sufficient to keep down weeds and reduce soil erosion. This mulch can also insulate roots and prevent plants, especially newly-planted shrubs and perennials, from heaving out of the ground with the freeze-thaw cycles that can occur during the winter.
Till Leaves Into Garden Beds
Shredded leaves work best when tilled into garden beds, but you can use small amounts of whole leaves, if necessary. Till into beds in the fall, or spread over surfaces and work into the soil in early spring. You don’t need a tiller; an old-fashioned garden fork or garden spade works fine to turn over the soil a few times and bury the leaves.
Start Composting
You can invest in a composter or start a simple pile in a corner or behind a shed. You can even make an inexpensive composter by using chicken wire or hardware cloth. Then save a bag of leaves, called “browns,” to add to the composter throughout the next growing season to ensure the proper ratio of green and brown materials for efficient decomposition. If you don't have space in your own yard or garden, check with your local municipality; many towns and cities offer free leaf and yard debris pickup, which they turn into compost that's later offered free to residents.
Make a Pathway
If there’s an area in your garden that’s always muddy, or you want to convert a path from expensive mulch to free leaves, now’s the time to take advantage of the fall bounty. Again, shredded leaves are best. Whole leaves can be slippery, and they tend to mat down too easily.
Extend Your Growing Season
A thick layer of leaves (either whole or shredded) can extend the growing season of many greens such as Swiss chard and perennial herbs like sage, parsley, and oregano. Simply mound leaves up three to five inches all around and on top of the plants. Keep the leaves in place by making small cages of chicken wire to contain them. You should be able to harvest for much of the winter, even in cold climates.
