Mulch those leaves!

[AOD]

Who else here mulches up their fall leaves with a mower. My elderly grandmother has always insisted in having us hand rake and tarp away all of her leaves on her 15+ wooded acres, until recent years when I convinced her to just let me chew them up with the lawn tractor. I do it at my own house too, except the street side I blow off for a nice clean look, but the back gets mulches and some gets dumped and rototilled into my garden.

Anybody else do this? Its so much easier than trying to rake, blow or pick up a lot of leaves.

 

[bowtechmadman]

Baggin them and adding them to my garden now that I have a bagger set up on my lawn tractor. Time consuming...bags fill up might fast w/ leaves compared to grass clippings.

 

[Rookie1]

I kinda do like you.I blow/rake and haul leaves to the road that are near the road. I also hae Troybilt selfpropelled leafsucker. It vacs them up and chews em to bits. I use it in the back yard thats far from road and throw in the compost pile. By the way village I live in picks them up and composts them.

 

[beerman6]

I try and mow/mulch mine,but they build up so bad between the deck and front tires,that the front tires wont spin...

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

Too thick around here. I'd choke the lawn in no time!

 

[archer39]

sure do, works great with our 60 inch exmark mower.

 

[AOD]

Too thick around here. I'd choke the lawn in no time!

Gotta mulch them more often then, sometimes even two or three times a week when they are really coming down. If they are balling up in front of the deck, raise the deck and back up a bit, and attack the pile from another angle until it is gone. Once an area is mulched, go over it again perpendicular to the first time you went over it, and you'll really grind them up good. Keep your blades sharp, dull blades don't mulch worth a crap. The nice thing about mulching is all the nutrients of the leaves go right back into the grass, and they will not blow back in a strong wind, once they are mulched they will decompose quickly and are gone for good.

 

[Octane]

I mulch my leaves with my lawn tractor too. I go in a counter clockwise direction and eventually the leaves get ground up. There is a mulching kit available for my Craftsman lawn tractor, but I guess Im just to cheap to spend the money. It takes a little longer to grind the leaves up because they tend to just blow out of the deck (my tractor has a 42" side-discharge deck), but by going in a counter clockwise direction the leaves get blown into the middle of my yard and eventually they get ground up. Granted, its probably not the most efficient way, but it gets the job done.
I used to mulch the leaves with my Honda walkbehind mower, but the tractor is a lot less work.
In the places where I cant get to with the tractor, I use my Echo ES-210 "Shread 'n Vac". I simply dont put the bag on it and it grinds up the leaves nicely.
My girlfriend's parents have a Cyclone Rake for their tractor and she tells me Im silly to mulch the leaves. She says that Im a dork and that it would save me so much time and gas money if I just picked the leaves up, but I think that its better to mulch the leaves so that they act as fertilizer for the lawn than to bag them and either dump them in the woods or burn them.

 

[wdanforth]

Use the Toro Proline walk behind mower to throw/mulch the leaves. I have woods on two sides of my property to blow the leaves to. I back track over clean area to just blow in one direction. I do it once a week so leaves do not get out of hand. About 50% get mulched the rest make it to the woods.

All the maples have dropped their leaves. Now just the giant American Sycamore in the back yard that takes forever to drop all its leaves.

 

[AOD]

Here most of the sugars and silver maples are down. The Norways and Reds hang on for a bit longer, sometimes after Thanksgiving, unless theres a big wind. Pin oaks are dropping, some of the white oaks here drop in the late winter. Always weird to see oak leaves fallen on a few inches of snow.

 

[Deadman]

I've been told the leaves are very acidic, and they are actually bad for the lawn. I never have a problem, but i try to vacuum most of them off in Spring.

 

[MATTYB11]

I've been told the leaves are very acidic, and they are actually bad for the lawn. I never have a problem, but i try to vacuum most of them off in Spring.

you can fix that with some pelletized lime. I usually spread some on the lawn under the pine trees in my back yard every spring.

 

[turnkey4099]

Been doign it for 30 years. First with a Honda walk-behind and now with a rider. Been over it twice this year. Almost all leaves down now but we are in for a week of showers. Have to wait till they dry before hitting it for the 3rd and last time.

Harry K

 

[wdchuck]

Wonder what nature has been doing all these years....

I did bag them with the mower and put them in the garden, great that way.
This year, start on the inside and go in ever widening circles, blowing inward. Doesn't matter if wet or dry without the bag or chute on.

 

[Mike Van]

Too many to mulch here - Foot deep under all the big maples. I use a Trac-Vac setup, 40 c.f. cart, picks up off the deck on the JD. Filled it 18 times at the farm so far, maybe 10 more loads? Then across the brook at my house, it's just as bad. I wait 'till they're all down [now] then it's a week of leaves. Too bad something couldn't turn them into a burnable product like 'leaf bricks' or something.

 

[mtfallsmikey]

I/we blow, mow,mulch...grind them up fine for the lawn. Wife has her "pet" Craftsman mulching self-propelled mower, bags them, puts into our raised beds. I till them under, add cow manure and compost. My bro scored a free Agri-Fab vac last year...too balky to use in the yard manuvering around flower beds, trees, etc. They seem to work best in the great wide open, like on the DR TV commercial.

 

[spike60]

I've got woods on all 4 sides so I just blow them back to where they came from.

My issue with leaves though is that they can work their way into my woodpile and hold a lot of moisture. The wood I split in the fall sits outside, until it is stacked in one side of my woodshed the next summer where it will season for just over a full year. (I alternate sides in the shed, so everything gets at least a full year in there.)

Sounds simple, but this year I'm waiting til all the leaves are down before splitting. I'll just use the blower to clean out the entire work area, and then get to work. The pile will breath much better until it is stacked next summer. Anybody else do this?

 

[Suz]

I've got a lot of soft maple trees in my yard and they drop a gazillion leaves. I used to pick them all up and haul the leaves to the compost dump, but for the past two years I've just been mulching them and leaving them on the lawn to rot. (I spread lime in the spring.)
In fact, as soon as I finish posting this I'm going to go out and give another go-around to chop up what fell yesterday before it snows! (We are scheduled to receive some rain and snow later today.)
Jim

 

[woodbooga]

I'm just about to do that myself. The thin and papery ash and red maple leaves are down, with the red oak leathery leaves still hanging on.

I'll mulch up the leaves with my Scotts power-assisted walk behind, cutting the grass to the shortest height of the year.

Once the oaks fall, the grass will be too short to cling on to them. winter winds will blow them from north to south into a forsythia hedgerow seperating my property from the neighbors where they will do no harm.

 

[ziggy2b]

wet leafs

i wait untill the leafs get wet mulch up easier with mower