Rake, rake, rake.

What to do with the leaves after raking? Well, we could have raked them into the street like the rest of the city does. The crews pick them up, drag dump truck upon dump truck full of leaves to the brush dump, and pile them up to become mulch. City residents can then bring their buckets and trash cans and fill them with mulch for free. I've done it in the past, and I'll do it again I'm sure.

But me? Daisy? The author of the family blog Compost Happens? I choose to keep my leaves in my own yard, giving my garden a warm blanket for the winter. The snow will arrive, sooner or later, and insulate the leaf pile. Eventually, the entire thing will either get tilled into the plot or decompose - or both.

The rest went on top of the new tomato plot - the one featured last week. We made it a little bigger, spread leaves and mulch on top, and settled the picnic table on top to help hold the leaves and newspaper/ cardboard barrier down until snowfall.

The trees, by the way, the silver maples that drop hundreds of leaves on my yard, do not even belong to me. They're in the yard behind ours, dropping helicopters in the spring and leaves in the fall. Some day maybe I'll plant a tree of my own -- or not. I get plenty of the benefits and the workload right now.

I'm participating in National Blog Posting Month - NaBloPoMo - on Compost Happens. Stop by any day; I'm posting daily for the month of November!