Raking them in, a couple people with big yards have been dropping off truck loads out front, then I haul them to the backyard… I’ve gotten about 4 truck loads of heavy stuffed bags of leaves so far. I’ve started spreading them out over the gardens, and I’m going to start making a large compost pile or two… I haven’t even started collecting my own and have a huge tree that doesn’t drop its leaves until after everything else does.
Leaves replenish the soil with trace elements.
Give me yer address, I’ve got some Oak and Red Maple Leaves I can mail ya.
start a compost pile to fill your containers for your 4 big plants next year, less you have to spend on soil.
My neighbor across the street from me has a law service. They come too often and during the fall they blow her leaves 2 or 3 times and then again after the winter. She has a cobble stone border next to her driveway and I can see how the lawn service has blown away 4 to 5 inches of soil over the years. The soil that remains is hard and nutrient poor. There is huge tree that lost it’s leaves early this year, it doesn’t look to healthy.
She said to me last summer that she had never seen her lawn look so green. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that that was because her yard had been taken over by crab grass. lol
I am starting a compost this year. I had quite a lot of bark, leaves etc… I might put a small fence around it and cover it with some leftover 6 mil black plastic.
When I was growing up there was this guy who used to compost his leaves. He mixed some lime in the compost every foot or so. I don’t know if that does any good or not. Anyway, some of us kids would turn some of the leaves over to see what was beneath. There were tens of thousands of worms. It looks like compost is basically composted worm shit.
So, we drink recycled dinosaur pee and eat food grown in worm shit. 
Yeah in the spring when it warms up and gets humid out, the pile will get invaded by earthworms and they’ll start breaking it down fast. Earthworm castings (EWC) aren’t cheap to buy and one of the best things for your plants.
I bought some EWC last Spring at Walmart and they were damn expensive… like $10 for a 64oz container.
I’ve read that a lot of the EWC for sale is inferior too and were only fed crap like cardboard.