It's that time of year again. Those beautiful autumn leaves are ankle deep all over the yard. I use a riding mower with a bagger to pick them up and carry them to the compost pile behind the garden. It takes hundreds of trips to get them over there. I hauled about 25 loads today. I usually don't finish until late December. In the 28 years we've lived here, the earliest was about December 10, but there were two years when I never did finish. Both times it killed a large area of grass and I had to reseed. The leaves make great garden compost, because the mower chops them up and they rot quickly. It makes about three or four pickup loads of black mulch. Some years I even mulch the corn and beans, but usually I concentrate on tomatoes, peppers, okra, cabbages, squash and other stuff that needs moisture. I noticed a couple of green bell peppers over in the garden today. We still haven't had a real frost and there are flowers blooming. I guess I'm not ready for winter.
Howard