Last year I bought a leaf shredder because the volume of leaves I have is overwhelming. I can't get the mower onto most areas of the yard. I used some for the compost pile and bagged the rest. To put it in perspective, most years, I've bagged 80-100 bags of leaves between Fall and Spring (the trees close to the lake don't lose leaves till December because of the more temperate climate down there and I just cannot do them all in one season). Two trees were taken down in the side yard this year, which reduces the raking considerably there and I've got a double trunk tree I'm hoping to take down next year. As you can see, I have TONS of leaves. While I don't have an area I can just pile them up in, I can put some bags somewhere and let them rot after shredding. I used shredded leaves as mulch in one bed where I have pine trees and shrubs. I'm just going to do that again too, but I really have to figure out where to put all these leaves.
Okay, so leaf mold is essentially compost without the greens to help them break down faster? Now I get it.
It just occurred to me also that the mountain across the street which my neighbor keeps designated as a tree farm (its just woods) probably has TONS of great compost I can help myself too.
We have a lot of rock and you can't really dig on the hills without hitting a lot of stones, but there's dirt there too. Maybe today I'll go dig some up and put it on my garden to winter over .
Thank you!