I’ll take the top of this pile to make paths between 2-foot garden beds, using the next layer as mulch in the asparagus beds and elsewhere (broccoli, sprouts, peppers, tomatoes). Under that, red wriggler worms are having sex and making multitudes of new babies, eating damp leaves, leaving worm castings (poop), turning it all into compost. I’ll distribute that about mid-summer throughout the beds.

These are mostly are oak leaves, so will that raise the pH of the garden? Nope. Weeds and kitchen swill (referred to as  nitrogen-rich “greens” will join the leaves to keep it all in balance.