Leaves on the lawn - rake, gas blower, battery blower, pay some one or power mulching ? Let them be?

[John Galt]

How did you handle the yearly covering of leaves on your lawn this year?

I’m from manual rake (bamboo please!) them into containers and take them to the town compost yard crowd. I wish I could compost them on my property but it is not big enough. I don’t own a gas or battery blower. I tried mulching them in with my mower but the end result was unsatisfactory. I actually like being outdoors for this yearly chore and that musty smell raking releases.

What is your fall leaf routine?

 

[nwjones18]

I can do 2-3 passes with my zero turn with mulching blades and make nearly any amount of leaves 98% disappear. I grew up bagging leaves with a riding mower and that is miserable as is raking or blowing into piles and burning. I've got to much tonnage to try to haul/bag it. Would be 20 truck loads to get it all anywhere.

 

[FowVay]

I use the entire shed of tools for my leaf recovery. I use my gasoline powered, 2-cycle, pre-mix, 32:1, Husqvarna leaf blower to blow all of my leaves into a nice big pile. I then use my gasoline powered, 2-cycle, pre-mix, 32:1, Lawn-Boy push mower to mulch the leaves and debulk the shear size of the pile to make it manageable. I then get my gasoline powered, 4-cycle, V-twin, water cooled, John Deere riding mower with large capacity bagger attachment with high-lift blade set installed, and I suck all of the mulched leaves into the bagger and then dump them into my compost pile.

This might sound a bit complicated but it's as much fun as an old red neck hillbilly can have. I light up a cigar, put on my Kenworth ball cap, and set about my mission of beautifying the trailer park.

 

[SHOZ]

I usually mulch most and rake some specific areas. This year I raked and then added some sides to my lawn cart and hauled them all down to the pond bank for some soil building. You can get too heavy of a mulch layer and it still will choke out the grass. Thinking about building a home made vacuum with the lawn cart for next year.

 

[svtrit]

I just mow them with my bagging mower and put them in the compost. This year some will stay as I have not gotten around to the final cleanup.

 

[zzyzzx]

I use the riding mower to mulch them. Just got to rake stuff away from trees, fence lines, etc. so the mower can get it. If you are not getting satisfactory results from mulching, then you are most likely doing something wrong.

Plus it's an excuse to ride the riding mower and keep it exercised and the battery charged off season.

 

[Hall]

I got a zero-turn this year and only get minimal leaves (neighbor's tree) and I tried mulching them to the point of not even seeing them anymore before I decided as mulched up as I got them is far, far better than just leaving them whole in the yard. Previously, I did nothing and that area of the yard doesn't have as good of grass coverage so those full leaves, sitting wet on the grass for months, don't break down like many people think.

 

[bullwinkle]

Blow them, rake them, some in the back corner of my yard for compost, a good quantity in cans for the (free) yard waste pickup. Most of the front ones are from my neighbor’s big sugar maple-that’s the price I pay for my summer shade (from the west)!

 

[JTK]

I mulch them with my rider or push mowers. I'll go over them 3x if that's what it takes to powder them up.

The only leaves that go with the trash are what lands in the landscaping, garage or around the porch and patio.

 

[PF52]

I pick up a lot with the mower but if there's too many I have to pick them up manually, and into bags. On the driveway etc I blow them into piles and pick them up manually. I realize there is a good case to be made for leaving them, or mulching them and just leaving them there, but if I did that I'd be digging a tunnel to the front door in a couple years. I have too many trees.

 

[nate379]

I don't have a lawn. Just dirt and woods.

 

[zzyzzx]

The only leaves that go with the trash are what lands in the landscaping, garage or around the porch and patio.

I take those and spread them out the lawn, and then use the riding mower to mulch them.

 

[zzyzzx]

I have too many trees.

Obligatory:

 

[PF52]

Obligatory:
View attachment 192959

I agree; I really need to get with the neighbors and see if we can all agree on one tree on each side to have cut down. It's a fine line whose tree is really whose; a few are obvious which side of the line they are on but most of the biggest and oldest ones are too close to tell.

 

[redtrucker610]

I normally just blow them away from the house then mow over them a few times with the rider.

 

[Blueshound]

How did you handle the yearly covering of leaves on your lawn this year?

I’m from manual rake (bamboo please!) them into containers and take them to the town compost yard crowd. I wish I could compost them on my property but it is not big enough. I don’t own a gas or battery blower. I tried mulching them in with my mower but the end result was unsatisfactory. I actually like being outdoors for this yearly chore and that musty smell raking releases.

What is your fall leaf routine?

We pay about $500 for a lawn service to come and blow the leaves into the woods. This year they came twice, two weeks apart. About 10 man-hours with young guys and pro equipment. Would be much longer for wife and I. We do our own mowing during the season but don't want to spend two or three whole weekends doing leaves.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I like to just mulch them with the mower. The last two years, we have had the side yard dug up for various service work so it was a bit difficult to mulch there and not destroy the mower. We're surrounded by woods on two sides, so there's plenty of leaves around. I don't really want to blow them back into the woods, because they'll end up back on my yard anyway and if I blow them to the neighbors yard ... well, that's just not a nice thing to do!

I am definitely not patient enough to rake and bag them. We don't have trash service to pick them up. I could run them to the dump but that's more work than I care to do.

Unfortunately, my riding mower is old enough that it doesn't have mulching blades available. I just block the discharge chute on it and run it in low gear to get everything chopped up. I'm sure it isn't as efficient as it should be but it works well enough for me.

 

[gman2304]

This. The the city vacuums them up from the curb in October and January. I’ve done 3 rounds this fall filling the bag 4 times each round and each bag full is 40 bushels. 2 acres with about 2 dozen trees. My neighbor hires a crew to blow and rake his leaves and drag them on tarps to the woods 3 times every fall. I wonder what that costs! I couldn’t do without my Cyclone Rake!

 

[Allaneddie]

The OP may need new mulching blades in the mower. I mulch the leaves into the lawn with the mulching blades on my zero turn. Before I bought the rider and used a walk behind, it was also a mulching mower (Honda). Sometimes it takes 2 passes if the leaves are thick but it is many times easier than raking. Adding that organic matter back into the soil is good for it. I would add one thing: I do have a battery powered leaf blower and use that to blow the leaves out of the flower beds and from around the trees and shrubs before I cut them up.

 

[JTK]

I take those and spread them out the lawn, and then use the riding mower to mulch them.

Good call. Depending on where they are, I'll use my Hitachi 2-stroke gas leaf blower, blow them onto the lawn and then mulch.