Shredded Leaves as Compost:

Shredded leaves make excellent and effective mulch for your spring garden. Making mulch from your fallen fall leaves is not difficult. Leaves can be shredded with your lawn mower or a leaf shredder. Shredding leaves and piling them into compost bin or if you don't have a compost bin a large heavy plastic yard bag works well too. Add the leaves in layers and on each layer add a handful of either urea, ammonium nitrate, or bone meal, either is found in your local garden center. Any of these will provide the needed nitrogen to help break down the leaves.

Continue to add leaves to your bag and when full add water enough to only saturate them ( not soak ) them. If you used a compost bin cover it with a heavy tarp or heavy plastic in the winter and mix it in early spring. If you used a heavy plastic bag, turn it occasionally during the winter. In the spring simply add your leaf mulch to your garden soil. If you notice white spots on the leaves, don't worry, it's a leaf fungus that adds a nutrient to the mulch. Leaf mulch is very light in weight and easy to apply and your garden soil will have the added benefits of carbon rich leaves and high nitrogen compost when mixed right into your garden in the spring.

Shredded leaves decompose faster and always be careful of the type of leaves that you plan to use as compost. Leaves such as walnut, camphor laurel or eucalyptus contain substances that will inhibit plant growth. These types of leaves should be thoroughly composted before they are added to your garden soil. Shredded leaves can also be added directly to your soil, but add a slow releasing nitrogen fertilizer to help the leaves decompose as it helps to make sure the natural soil microbes won't use all the nitrogen.

Keep in mind that when whole un- shredded leaves are added to your soil they can form a barrier and water cannot penetrate through them, so shredding is always best.