Nah. They help insulate the soil during the winter, and the worms and everyone else will start munching them. In the spring, if there are too many, put some in your compost pile. You should also save a pile to layer with your kitchen scraps all winter. You ARE composting your kitchen scraps, riiiight? :-D

Tox, I am not.

I have put some scaps directly into the soil but haven't learned about composting yet. It's my first year

I'd be fine putting that depth on my garden if I had one. I easily put that depth on and in some areas of my farm fields over the winter but I don't seed them the following year. I had issues with nitrogen deficiency when I tried to seed the following spring. Probably not as big an issue in a garden.

Glib,

since i only put the leaves on yesterday (zone 6), how should I best handle this? Should i take the leaves off the soil and wait to put them back on a warm day? Or do I take them off in late February to let the sun warm the soil for spring?

thanks

I would leave the leaves in place (LOL!!) now and remove in spring. February is probably too early in the season for your climate to remove. You want to wait at least until overnight temps remain in the 40's - you need at least that sort of temps (and sun) for soils to warm adequately to plant, even in raised beds.

I like very finely chopped leaves and/or leaf compost...all added in the fall....whole leaves?...not in the fall. They blow away and impede spring warming and drying.

The man who wrote "Ploughman's Folly had buried whole leaves, but until he lightly worked them into the surface, his clayey soil was hard as a brick at times.

Honestly, you are asking a lazy guy about that. I know that certain crops like collards and cardoon make it even if the soil is cool. Beans also are fine. So I do cover quite a bit of ground in November. But for tomatoes or squash I suggest that leaves be pulled back in spring. If you pull them back, you can shorten the time to mulching by laying black plastic for faster warming.

m_gold - there is as much or as little as you like to learn about composting. Even just piling up the kitchen scraps with some leaves mixed in will give you compost. Any method is better than sending organic materials to landfill. Some of us cold compost. We don't worry about ratios, we don't care if it heats up and we don't turn but we do get compost. If it didn't work my home would be buried under a mountain of organic stuff because I don't ever put any kitchen or garden waste in the rubbish bin.

Where in the world are you? Zone 6 tells us very little.

What kind of soil do you have?

3 to 5 inches of leaves, or other mulch material, is not too much and does not need to be removed anytime. If the soil is clay, and does not drain very well, That amount of mulch may help hold moisture in the soil (clay does that quite well by itself) which can delay soil warm up in the spring. If the soil is sand and drains well that will not be a problem. Numerous studies have shown that black plastic does not transfer solar energy to soil very well and it will help hold excess moisture in soils that will slow down soil warming even more.

Are those leaves whole or have they been shredded? Shredded leaves will get worked into the soil sooner than would whole leaves.

kimmq is kimmsr