That's what I have done, even if it was a lot. I've seen the soil in these areas flourish if they were getting enough moisture, but this was a very big garden so it could handle a big mess. Otherwise, in the compost it goes. Good stuff in my opinion. There was a time I didn't have any organic sources of nitrogen. I would pick up the grass and hand till into my planter soil. Now, I have rabbits.

It depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

If they are healthy, I mostly drop them into the pathways as part of the mulch. If they are not healthy, I fill the wheelbarrow and then wheel them back to the large compost pile that sits about 100 yards from my garden.

I do the same thing with weeds. If they are healthy and have not set seed I drop them directly to the pathways in between raised beds. This works 9 years out of 10. This year we have been perpetually wet and some of the weeds I've dropped into the path tend to have rooted into the mulch and begun growing again, so I've had to pull them again. If they are diseased or infested with pests, they go to the back compost pile.

Everything in the pathways decomposes and I use my compost scoop to scoop up the decomposed mulch/plant trimmings/weeds in winter or earliest spring to enrich the beds. It is the easiest and most carefree composting I've ever done. I'd rather scoop compost from the pathway and dump it onto a directly adjacent bed than to haul wheelbarow load after load of compostable material away from the garden to the compost pile only then to haul wheelbarrow loads of compost back from the compost pile to the beds. I generally don't even use the compost from the back compost pile. I let it stay there where it is because I'm using that compost pile as a sort of hugelkultur area to heal a very badly eroded area on our land. As everything decomposes back there, new plants grow which then prevents further erosion.

Right how the back compost pile is growing tomato plants, 4 o'clocks, basil and Laura Bush petunias. I believe the four o'clocks grew from seeds in plants I hauled back there after frost killed them in the fall and I hauled the dead plant matter away. Everything else rooted from trimmings I tossed onto the pile.

Thank you I'll keep leaving them in the garden.