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TL;DR: leave them where they fall.
Next best thing is mulch-mow them into the lawn.
If you have to collect them up, compost them in a pile, mix it up occasionally, eventually it'll become soil-like and fed it back to the garden.
An alternative to compost is a worm farm, you can feed it food scraps too.
Please protect your piles of fallen leaves. Many, many species of insects rely on leaf piles to complete their reproduction process. For example, lightning bugs.
Check if any neighbors want them.
If you compost, you have your carbon for the bin.
Mulch garden beds and walkways.
Rake into a pile around trees (but not touching the trunk - leave the collar exposed).
If you have a chipper, you could run them through and use for finer mulch or soil amendment.
Maybe next year she can leave them on the ground for insect habitat - feed the birds in the spring. Use mulching mower in the spring after the hatch.
These are great tips.
I think the solution might be using a bunch of these.
Do you have any advice on speeding up their breakdown? Are there any tools or practices that cause them to shrink in volume faster? I think she's just trying to manage slipping on walkways and visual effect, and she has a very high volume.
I think making small piles and letting them rot is probably a good idea. I think mulching them and raking them into beds is probably smart. I'll try stuff and see.
@andrewrgross You could probably get away with a small battery or solar chipper for just leaves. If your mower mulches, or has a bagger, you can mow over the leaves and (with a bagger) collect the chopped up leaves. I have an electric leaf blower I use for just this purpose - it also has a vacuum and will mulch leaves into a bag. They end up very finely chopped! I have seen some people put leaves in a trash can and put a weed eater in it for a while. 😂
I feel like I'll be reposting this video a lot, but I love ✨ＬＥＡＦ ＭＯＬＤ✨
In my garden, I took some chicken wire, a few stakes, and made a place for leaves, about 3-4 feet across.
Just like compost, mix it every few days and moisten it to the level of a damp sponge (appropriate for your climate). After a year (yes, a year), you'll have a pile of broken down organic matter, and a lovely leaf mold environment.
Also, Leaf mold breaks down leaves way faster when you already have a starter pile of it to add to from last year.