I do here. I like about 4" applied in mid November after the garlic has sprouted but before the ground freezes and then I will fluff it up and pull about half of it off in March so the beds do not retain too much water after heavy rains. An inch or 2 is enough to suppress weeds.

Do you grind up the leafs or leave them whole? I usually run mine throw the mower a few times.

Last year I ground my leaves up and placed a 4-inch cover on my soft-neck garlic. After harvest, I tilled the mulch into the soil. Worked fine except I applied the mulch too early, about October 20 in Northern VA and had a lot of above ground growth. This year I am going to wait until after the first freeze.

What I do is mow the leaves up with the bagger on and then pile the leaves in a windrow about 6" high and a few feet wide and then run them over with the mower without the bagger on which shreds the leaves up very finely. Then I replace the bagger and collect the shredded leaves.

The leaves shred down into almost nothing... great as an amendment but as a mulch, you need a lot of leaves. Even in my yard not enough for the entire garden..... I will also probably mow most of the leaves though. So easy.

No shortage of free leaves at the curb during fall. Go shopping. My neighbor shreds and bags his. I grab the bags after all the work is done. I just blow my leaves into the woods.

Yes they definitely shrink down to about 1/10 the volume when shredding. Leaves are one commodity that are never in short supply on my forest property...it's just a matter of how much time and energy I want to put towards collecting them.

I don't shred the leaves that go into my compost piles. I only shred those that will be used as mulch on my raised beds and since many of my beds have already been amended or mulched with unfinished compost I won't be shredding too many this year. Probably just enough to put 4" on my 3 garlic beds and 4 Asparagus beds.