Mulch those leaves!

[A. Stanton]

If most of my leaves were't acidic oak, I would. But that not being the case, I have to dump em in a pile in the woods.

 

[lon]

Octane, thank you for the reply.

 

[Rookie1]

They probably arent dry enough but I was just thinking if conditions were right you could set them afire where they lay in the yard. Im not a pyro but it sounds cool.

 

[beerman6]

I wish I still had the hovercraft...

 

[spike60]

Acidic oak leaves is a myth!

When they break down the resulting leaf mold is almost neutral in pH.

You can till all of them you want into a vegetable garden and great soil is the result. If you till them in during the fall try to get three tillings in before Christmas they should all be broken down by spring tilling time.

I always wondered about that. Is that pretty much the case for all leaves?

 

[Octane]

Octane, thank you for the reply.

Not a problem.

They probably arent dry enough but I was just thinking if conditions were right you could set them afire where they lay in the yard. Im not a pyro but it sounds cool.

That would probably do more damage to the yard than just leaving them lay. I used to bag the leaves with my old Honda HR214 walkbehind motor (it had rotostop, so you could empty the bag without having to stop and then restart the motor all the time), but it seems kind of silly to do that when you could just mulch the leaves and get free fertilizer.

 

[iowawoodcutter]

Acidic oak leaves is a myth!

When they break down the resulting leaf mold is almost neutral in pH.

You can till all of them you want into a vegetable garden and great soil is the result. If you till them in during the fall try to get three tillings in before Christmas they should all be broken down by spring tilling time.

I would think you are right. Our neighborhood has all mature red and white oak trees. The neighbors all told me last year when I moved in I will have to pick up the leaves as they are too acidic to mulch. Well, I hate raking so I mulched them last year and my lawn was fine. I am mulching again this year, and hoping my lawn will be fine again????

 

[woodbooga]

Free insulation

We don't have enough leaves to do this, but a few landscaper friends of ours bring us bagged leaves, which we bank against the foundation of our house's northern and western elevations. Cuts down on the impact of the cold arctic winds, especially when the snow covers the bags.

 

[Coldfront]

One house I used to live in I also did this, rake all the leaves up against the side of the house all the way around about 2 feet high of leaves, then I covered it up with tar paper it really helped keep the cold out of the basement. Seal the tar paper to the house with cheap wood slats, in the spring roll the tar paper back up for the next year.

 

[RCR 3 EVER]

Been mulching mine for years too. With dogs using the yard for unowhat I've always spread lime in the spring or fall...seems to work just fine. I think my low maintenance grass looks a lot better than my dad's chemically dependant and leaf removed grass.... and I think our grass survives the dry summer months better too!

a little off subject but:
Just to make a little more work for myself I'm experimenting with an area that also gets corn gluten meal spread early spring before the annual weeds sprout to see if I can better control crabgrass, etc. Jury is out on the weed control aspect as I've only done it once so far...but that grass is thicker and more green than non applied areas.(I know, there goes the low maintenance I just spoke of!...but at least it's all natural stuff).

We have been using the Troy Bilt chipper/vac/mulcher for a decade now and with the forward and reverse speeds it is easier on my back than raking.
The chopped leaves are put around the spruces and other bushes to protect from quick freeze thaw changes. It also helps build up the soil nutrients.

We also feed the birds in the winter so there are a lot of "weed" seed growth. The Corn Gluten spread in the spring prevents the germination of seeds and best of all it is NON TOXIC. If used year round on annual basis it will reduce or may eliminate the dreaded crabgrass. Although we let many weeds go to seed so birds them.

I have read that Black walnut leaves are toxic even in the fall, but I have not seen plants or bushes die off when spreading out the mulch.

 

[BriGuy89]

With the mower we mulch and blow all of our leaves into the beds around our trees. We never rake or bag. Tremendous soil builder.

For vegetable gardening we have an ad in Craigslist's 'wanted' section that we are looking for grass clippings and leaves for composting.


I cringe when I hear about people 'hauling off' the organic dividends their landscapes generate for them. I feel that all properties should be able to handle their organic waste on-site. Think about it...if you are growing plants and trees and hauling off the organic waste...you are most likely depleting the soil in your landscape. You can only partially make up for this depletion with infusions of chemical fertilizer or even organic fertilizers.

Compost it all and feed it back to your plants!

I could not have said it better myself, TC.

I actually use a small chipper/shredder to grind my leaves. I fill the garden with ground leaves, and then start a pile of shredded leaves in my compost area. (Yes, I have a back corner of the yard dedicated to composting.) Leaf worms and bacteria do their thing and break down the pile significantly. Come Spring, I loosen the pile with the tiller and use as mulch as needed in the garden and flower beds. By the fall, anything left is fully broken down into compost and goes back into the garden (six wheelbarrows full a few weeks back).

The notion of wasting such a great recurrent organic resource just doesn't compute for me, either.

 

[John D]

I am a golf course superintendent for 18 yrs now.We have been mulching the majority of our leaves for over 10 yrs now. In most cases you can just mulch and leave them without stifling the lawn too much. If you are mulching a lot of leaves,make sure you keep the fertilizer levels up in the turf,as grass that is actively growing very quickly reduces and eats the leaves where as unfertilzed turf often gets a layer of build up and thatch from heavy leaf mulching.As for acidic,the only time we have had any issues is with pine trees/needles,and your going to have to put down lime there anyway if you want grass near a pine tree,and you still wont likely keep grass there.We run a double blade combination on the mowers for the fall and spring that quickly reduces piles of leaves to nothing but tiny specks,we close our chutes,and mow them into rows,and back over the rows slowly,and then mow them to disperse them,and thats all they get,usually one good rain,and you cant see them.The blades we use are a gator mulcher over a standard low lift blade on all 3 spindles,this uses a little more HP,but mulches them better in one pass,than a single blade does in 2 passes.We run Dixie Choppers and Steiners,both have high blade tip speeds that help with grinding.

 

[Mike Van]

I finally finished yesterday - Filled & dumped the Trac-Vac cart 28 times at the farm, 32 times here. When they're damp, it probably weighs 100+ lbs every load. Talk about burning them, lots of people used to, I think it's outlawed now, too much smoke. They don't burn well unless you stand there & keep shaking the pile up. I remember main street in Kent, early 60's, people would rake them out to the edge of the road & lite 'em up. Smoke for days. Smelled good though, from a distance.

 

[jcrenfrow]

I am a golf course superintendent for 18 yrs now.We have been mulching the majority of our leaves for over 10 yrs now. In most cases you can just mulch and leave them without stifling the lawn too much. If you are mulching a lot of leaves,make sure you keep the fertilizer levels up in the turf,as grass that is actively growing very quickly reduces and eats the leaves where as unfertilzed turf often gets a layer of build up and thatch from heavy leaf mulching.As for acidic,the only time we have had any issues is with pine trees/needles,and your going to have to put down lime there anyway if you want grass near a pine tree,and you still wont likely keep grass there.We run a double blade combination on the mowers for the fall and spring that quickly reduces piles of leaves to nothing but tiny specks,we close our chutes,and mow them into rows,and back over the rows slowly,and then mow them to disperse them,and thats all they get,usually one good rain,and you cant see them.The blades we use are a gator mulcher over a standard low lift blade on all 3 spindles,this uses a little more HP,but mulches them better in one pass,than a single blade does in 2 passes.We run Dixie Choppers and Steiners,both have high blade tip speeds that help with grinding.

I do the same thing. I love my gator blades they work great although I don't think my 15hp crampsman would run 2 blades per spindle

 

[beerman6]

Im sick of the damn leaves,started out mowing/mulching them Sunday only to quit about 1/4 of the way thru the front yard.It was snowing pretty good and I could hardly see.I got out the mower again today but was pushing more than I was cutting,got out the blower ended up with the rake making big piles and carting them out to the woods.

Have any of you had any luck with the tow behind sweepers?

 

[DonB]

I bolt a blocking plate over the discharge of my Kubota ZD with a 60" Pro deck. No gator blades but it still disappears the leaves, all the pine cones that go under and virtually all of the pine straw. Unfortunately, I just learned if I forget to switch over to low-lift blades it also mulches most of the pecans.

 

[Octane]

Have any of you had any luck with the tow behind sweepers?

They work pretty good as long as the leaves are dry. The only bad thing about tow-behind sweepers is that you often have to go over an area a couple times to get all the leaves and because they dont chop up and compact the leaves, you have to empty the sweeper frequently. My sister in law's dad has a Craftsman lawn sweeper and I used it one year. Its OK, but I prefer to just mulch them up with my Honda walkbehind mower. My Honda has the, "Quadracut" dual blade setup, so it mulches them really well. If the leaves are really heavy the Honda just doesnt have the horsepower to get the job done, so in that instance I get out my Craftsman 42" lawn tractor. It doesnt mulch the leaves up as well as the Honda does, but it still does a pretty good job.
Ive looked into getting the mulching kit that Sears offers for my tractor, but they want $60 for the kit and they want another $60 to ship it (they claim that all of the stores in my area dont carry the kit). For $120, I'll just use the Honda...

 

[AOD]

No mulching leaves here, theres 5" of snow on the ground!

Maybe next week.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

Hey Don:

What happens to the lift factor if you block the discharge of the mower deck, keep the same blades on?

That may be the solution for my old Cub Cadet 1450, which lacks in lift to start with?

 

[John D]

What happens to the lift factor if you block the discharge of the mower deck, keep the same blades on?

That may be the solution for my old Cub Cadet 1450, which lacks in lift to start with?

On my dixie choppers,they have a lot of lift. If i close the chute,i get blowout out the front of the deck.But as i run over the heavy leaves,they build a wall in front of the deck,and it prevents blowout,but you need to go slow,as the engine bogs as the deck gets full of leaves,and overwhelmed.Even my big chopper a 50hp Yanmar turbodiesel 72" will eventually start to bog when mulching huge piles of leaves,but it reduces them to nothing in a few seconds.With a setup that doesnt have much lift,it will likely have even less,as the "exhaust" is partially blocked,so intake air usually drops as well.
With any mower you can change the deck lift by swapping to a blade with more or less lift or doubling the blades,if yout setup allows it. Switch to a hi lift blade if you dont have enough lift.I run low lifts in summer to keep the dust down,and because the grass isnt usually thick here in summer,but spring and fall i use gators on top of a hi lift to really spread the grass so i get no clumps on first pass,even in heavy growth.Just like a chainsaw that you swap bars on,the mower is the same,your just changing blades that work best for the conditions at the time. For me its no big deal,I have literally dozens of blades,and sharpen every 4-8 cutting hours anyway.