Our lawn has a ton of mature oak trees with these tiny leaves that sink down into the grass and layer as the winter goes on (in Florida, our trees lose leaves pretty much all winter instead of in one big Fall shed!).

(old photo, but see all of those trees? Ack!)

So DH and I spent Sunday (all day!) and Monday after work raking pretty much just the area you see in that pic. If we don't do it, we won't be able to fertilize and overseed our lawn effectively (and it REALLY needs it down here!). It'll take us weeks to rake the rest of our 1 acre (plus) lot! But this is what we had from Sunday's adventures:

Oh yes, that's SIXTEEN thirty-gallon bags! We filled eight more on Monday evening! From 1/4 of our yard!

My body aches... Everywhere.

wow. What does one do with all those leaves?

Apparently the county uses them for compost or something... whatever, as long as they take them away I'm satisfied!

OMG and I thought my few bags of leaves was bad! I'll think of you the next time I complain about my lawn!

OMG that's alot of leaves! We got a mulching mower and blade for it last year and now we just go right over the leaves where they lay - has been working really well for us.

And FYI ladies but in areas where they pick up and compost your leaves you can usually get free or very cheap aged leaf compost from the municipality - we get some from ours for free every year - where I am you have to be able to load and haul it yourself though.

Jessie, since you're a organic gardener, do you worry about chemicals in the county's compost? I know my husband used spectracide last year on our front lawn (I won't let him use it on the back yard or anywhere near our edibles), so I worry about the leaves being tainted. That's the reason I won't use any compost but my own and the certified organic from garden sources.

I don't use it for our veggie garden - I should have specified that - I use it for everything else. For the veggies this year we put in raised beds and I'm trying the lazagna soil method with our leaves and own compost.