Free Fertilizer!

Before, since I don't have as many trees in front,
most to these leaves came from the street

Every year at this time I see so many people raking up and throwing out an excellent, free material for building their soil and feeding their plants and lawn. By mowing in the leaves you return nutrients to the soil, build organic matter, cut down on disposal or transportation costs and, best of all, you don’t need to bend over to pick up the leaves.

After.  10 minutes later, the leaves are 'gone'.

Last season I blogged about this same topic, and you can look back there to read about more good reasons to mow in your leaves. I can also refer you to a recent post from MassHort on fall preparations for more about mowing leaves. They also recommend lowering the mower blades for the last mowings of the season. I did that this year and I got some pretty clean results.  There are some special cases that argue against mowing the leaves back into the soil, but there are many more cases where the benefits far outweigh any downside. So for the last mowing/raking of the year, lower the blades a little and just run over those leaves.