Tilling them in will tie up some of the nitrogen in the soil for awhile, so if you can add a nitrogen source (manures, coffee grounds from Starbucks, they give them away, alfalfa pellets that you can buy where animal feed is sold,) will all help speed things up. If leaves are left in bags or piles, it takes two-three years for them to break down into leaf mould, which is beautiful stuff for your garden. If you add the nitrogen, it will make it compost, and it will break down quicker.

You can also try making a lasagna bed, which is what I do, since I'm a low-turning/tilling type gardener out of necccessity (carpal tunnel syndrome-no tilling for me,please!) A lasagna bed is layers of compostables put on top of the garden bed, then allowed to sit over winter, and planted in, or covered with burlap to help hold in moisture, (search Interbay mulch) or topped with top soil if you want to plant in sooner. Currently, I do the top soil, as I bought a trailer load of broken bags this year, and still have some left. When it's all gone, I'm going to rob a bit of topsoil from surrounding beds to cover my 'lasagna' beds. Just topping it off neatens up the appearance, weights things down a bit, and keeps everything moist. not to mention, then I can plant right away f I want.

I hope this helps. Come omn over to the soil, compost, and mulch forum if you have more questions,. Those folks have a really good time! And they really know their compost! Lots of fun.

happy gardening,
cantstop

Great. I, thinking I was trying to keep things in balance put some 10-10-10 fertilizer over my beds and flowers have been growing "wildly" so I think I've got plenty of N. Course when you pour on sheep manure every other year also. My soil is a little sandy and I just thought I needed more humus.