Whether the leaves and grass clippings would be better than a cover crop or not depends on the current condition of your soil. If that soil needs a large amount of OM the fastest way to get it into the soil is to heavily mulch with leaves and grass clippings and let the Soil Food Web do the hard work for you. My experience with my sandy soil is that tilling in, even very large amounts of OM, gets the SFW working so hard that there is little residual OM left for the future, while laying a mulch on the soil allows the wee buggers to incoporate that OM into your soil better than you and any tilling device you might use will.
Besides, in this day and age when the price of gasoline is so high why use a machine to do something the soil bacteria will do better at much less cost?

Hello mailman22...you really can't put too much material in your soil generally. I add leaves and grass clippings spring and fall...and also use rye for a green manure that I turn under in the early spring. I use a Troy built tiller to do the job...but if you want to be macho turn everything in/under by hand. I also use compost...peat moss...and seaweed when I can find time to haul it. Franklin

Hey Franklin,
Do you till in the leaves and clippings before you sow the rye in the fall? And by the way, there is no way I would do this by hand.
{{gwi:116447}}
I have a tiller mounted on the back of my Wheel Horse tractor. I understand the no-till crowd, I just choose to till, thats all.
Thanks.

Hi mailman22...ayup...in late fall...after I harvest... I pull old plants and weeds and add them to the compost pile...then I spread out the leaves that I have gathered from the yard and either till or dig them in...dependin' on how rugged I feel at the time...:-) After the leaves have had time to break down for a couple of weeks I spread winter rye seed and rake it in...has worked for me for many yrs doin' it this way. In the spring I add seaweed...compost...peat moss...and other yard clean up material...and dig/till...works great. I also foliage feed with fish/seaweed fertilizer a few times durin' the growin' season. Keep things simple and enjoy...Franklin

I want to see some better pictures of those pretty chickens!

Chickens are neat. They eat all the grubs and bugs while pooping out fertilizer. You can ean 'em too. And don't forget those fresh eggs.