It's that time of year. Rake season. Some cities and villages offer leaf pickup during November. Does your city offer leaf pickup? (Even if you live outside of the city proper, you may answer this regarding the city on your mailing address.)

Our city has a "recycle the fall" program that involves purchasing big recyclable paper bags from local stores (the trash pickup company sends all its customers coupons so these are free), filling those bags with leaves and lawn trimmings only, and leaving them with the regular weekly trash. The city picks up as many bags as one sets out and recycles/repurposes the lawn waste. Does your city do that, or has a previous city in which you lived done that?

Other cities recycle/repurpose autumn leaves by using the "sucking" method, where a large truck equipped to suck up curbside leaves does the job. Does your city do that, or has a previous city in which you lived done that?

And yet other cities use the "old school method," in which city employees or correctional facilities--um--customers will corral leaves left in piles on residents' lawns and move the leaves to a lawn waste recycling truck. Does your city do that, or has a previous city in which you lived done that?

Finally, every year at this time there is a call to "leave the leaves be--don't rake!" After doing some research, I found that, for private yards, this may be ok for small leaves that decompose rapidly but for large leaves like oak, maple and sycamore that take a year to decompose, this may be a bad idea because the lawn underneath will turn yellow and die. Of course, it depends on what the landowner wants. Are you persuaded by the "Leave the Leaves Lie--Don't Rake" campaign?