Got time?

If your lawn mower is a mulching mower, it's easy - just mow slowly and don't worry about the depth of mulched leaves. As long as the grass blades stick out a little, you'll be fine.

If it's NOT a mulching mower, you can still do the same thing - just run the leaves over again and again. When I had a non-mulching mower, it took up to four passes, but it worked. It's just slow and boring.

If you have a blower, you can somewhat "even up" where the leaves are, before or after mowing...

If the microherd is in any kind of shape, you will be SHOCKED at how fast the mulched leaves disappear. And it gets faster and faster if you keep a steady diet of them coming...

I'm still waiting for leaves to drop...

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I have this fear in my head that I need to rake all of the leaves and get them off of the yard because in previous years I swear it smothers the grass and I end up in spring with a thinned out yard.

It is a natural fear, and if the leaves are left whole, completely true. I am surrounded on three and a half sides by mature trees, and have "Bertha" the giant Norway Maple in the lawn. She is 75' wide and 60'-70' tall. I get 24" to 30" of leaves a season - no exaggeration. It goes on for seven or eight weeks. There are probably 200 trees (all mature) within 25' of my property. You get the picture - lots of leaves. Six inches of leaves shred down to a couple of inches and that disappears.

I'm going to irritate everyone by posting a picture I've posted numerous times before. It is over 2" of leaves shredded into the lawn. They were gone in a week.

My yard has 5 large oak trees.

Oak leaves are a little slower, but not a problem.

+1 Andy. As long as you can see the tips of the grass you'll be fine. In my shadier areas where the grass has already thinned out sometimes I mulch so much that I can't even see any green. Following April all is well.