I have entered for Nov. 1st on my calendar ------

Yes, Diane....I agree. It always seems we have collected so many leaves but they rot down to so little. And, now I am no longer looking after people's gardens, I will not have such a source of leaves for my leaf mould. I use it on the veg patch , particualrly where roots are to be grown.

Marvellous stuff this time of year. There are schools of thought about different types of leaves being more beneficial. I try to get to Sainsburys car park when the
lads are bagging them up for the recycle centre, but they are Plane tree leaves. Beech seems to be the best. I have my little area in a nearby village !

I find they take a couple of years to rot down with them being high in tannins. I love adding leaf mould to the borders but I usually do it early autumn and let the worms take it down into the soil.

I find beech takes longer than either lime of sycamore - haven't tried anything else. Has anyone done any tests to see which rots quicker,in a bag with holes in, in a wire container or in a heap?

No, I just use whatever I'm sweeping up in whoever's garden but not oak. I used to use a lot of Acer/Maple and they were good.Took just over a year in black bags of kept wet.

Mine were Beech in a black bin bag spiked. Took a year.
Think I will stick to that system. Its good for nature if we
use all materials provided, and not leave them for the
council sweeper lorries.

I failed with black bags - probably they were too dry then. But we have too many for bags to be practical really. We shred ours with the mower and heap them up and they are ready in a year. Tried a wire netting container once but that was extremely slow and not worth it.

Yes, I think they need lots of moisture Stera! I have 4 or 5 bags on the go at the moment and when I checked a few weeks ago, one was very dry and had not broken down as much as the others... It must have been dry for a long while .

Yes it must. When I tried it the bags broke down before the leaves did....