We've been living on our "homestead" for a little more than a year but we've owned the land for about 5yrs. Thirty yrs ago the land was the location of a junkyard/granite pit (rotten granite). The area we've selected as the garden area has no soil---only sand with little pepples of glass, misc. nuts, bolts, washers etc in it. Two yrs ago we had the city, located about three miles from us, haul in five 10- yard truckloads of leaves. We pushed them up into a pile and let them rot over the winter and most of the following summer, then spread them in the fall over this sandy area.(posted 9676 days ago)Last year we did the same thing but put about ten 1 ton truckloads of horse manure in with the leaves. In the spring we broke the pile up. It was not fully decomposed but it was much better than the year before. We used the loader and made four deep raised beds about 6 x 30' each, tilled it as deeply as we could and planted in it, very late in the season (mid july). In spite of the lateness and courseness of the compost we had a bumper crop of tomatoes, potatoes and squash.
This last winter, we did it again, but with 50# of blood meal, 50# of bone meal, 50# of kelp meal and lots of wood ashes over the winter. I haven't yet opened the pile but it has reduced in size considerably which is a good sign.
We have not tilled it in nor do we intend to because we don't want to churn the junk up into the garden soil. We're building the garden on top us the sand. Thats been our experience, but our soil situation is different.
I'm guessing if you tilled the leaves in, in the fall, with some alfalfa hay to supplement nitrogen you'd be pleased with the results.