This is a really good piece by Ron, please spend time reading it. If you observe any true wild nature, you will discover nature does not plow the ground, nor does nature rake up the leaves each year, etc. Yet nature does just fine. I am building a permaculture type system, myself actually, deciding not to plow in all that cut grass and the like I purchased to rehab my soil last year. We ought to be giving up standard lawns too, these are planet killers. I watch neighbors carefully throwing out the very leaves and other "dead" matter each year in order to have pretty clean dirt that requires tons of wasted water and fertilizers.  And I get shot down for leaving my leaves where the fall in the gardens. It seems leaves are ugly. I do NOT pull up the dead plants, but I do cut down the tops so they can contact the ground. The old roots should be left in the ground to break down.