I have mowed by backyard leaves three times, and that’s enough. If more leaves fall, so be it.
However, the leaves on the patio and in the garden beds were not mow-able. So, I sucked them up in my leaf grinder/shredder and spread them in my garden. I totally covered the garden soil with about 2-inches of the shredded leaves and – look out vegetables – it should be another great year next spring. As I wrote a few weeks back, leaves are extremely valuable as a source of nutrients as well as adding organic material to a garden bed.
The ground-up leaves are a rich source of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and more. They not only suppress weeds and help retain soil moisture, but because they contain no weed seeds themselves, they won’t encourage the spread of new weeds.
Putting piles of whole leaves can form a mat that prevents the garden soil from absorbing rain, and it can lead to leaf mold. So mulching is far better.
Ultimately, shredded leaves add slow-release nitrogen fertilizers to help the leaves decompose and to ensure that soil microbes don’t use all of the available nitrogen.