Great advice, Ivy and lovely photos.

That first one of the Maple leaf is just gorgeous. I love how you managed to capture a couple of Chestnut shells amongst the leaves! they are the coolest looking things, both the whole nut and the empty shell.

That is a fantastic idea for creating leaf mould.

We always used to leave the legume plants lying over the soil in their entirety. Once they were dried up ( in early spring), we would dig them into the soil. They would be dried up and brittle and would break up beautifully into our hard, red clay soil. It took a while, but after several years of rotating crops and digging them in, that hard, red clay became beautiful, malleable, rich soil.

I love your idea of thwarting the moths with overwinter sticky tape.

You reminded me that it is time for me to install my winter burlap and assorted bush and tree guards for the winter. We are supposed to get some really nice weather in the next few days so I will take advantage of that.