[lakelady]

I have always had a compost pile that mostly held grass clippings and some other stuff from the yard. This year I'm going to shred many leaves to compost because I can't take raking and bagging it all anymore. In taking a more serious look at what compost should be, I've read you need greens and browns. Well my question is this. Why are fallen leaves considered browns if they were once greens? With all of my huge oak trees, I have lots and lots of browns and I'll never have enough "greens" to make a balanced mix if this is the case. Hope this isn't a dumb question.