What do you do with your leaves?

I don’t have a bagger on my mower, so I mulch some, but I have too many to mulch all of them. So I bag the majority and then haul it away to a compost site (which is free for Hennepin County residents). Some of my neighbors have been burning them but it stinks and you need a permit from the city for this. Some leaves are fine to leave on the lawn but too many will starve the grass of the air it needs. What do you do with all your leaves in the fall?

Mulch them. Sometimes it takes multiple runs over them with the mower but it works. Never put down winter fertilizer either, let the leaves do the natural thing.

Have lots and lots of leaves and bring them to a compost site.

LOL holy crap is that a real machine?

gimruis wrote:

LOL holy crap is that a real machine?

Yep. Sucks them up and shreds them. Still a lot of work because the bag gets heavy, and with the amount of leaves I have, it fills up a lot, but it drastically cuts down on the time and trips to the compost site.

let them blow into the corn field and creek to the east of me.

hnd wrote:

let them blow into the corn field and creek to the east of me.

That sounds way more ideal.

Do they have a machine that spreads on your lawn? I only have a couple trees and want to mulch them and disperse them in areas that don’t have leaves.

Just wait for a really windy day to take the leaf blower and direct them all to the street,once on the pavement the wind takes care of them.

I just blow them all into the neighbors yard and let them rake them up. No really we mow or mulch them up and go 1 direction blowing them into the woods or down the steep hill. I only end up raking pine needles and that is enough.

I have big maple trees and used to have even more, so the leaves were a HUGE issue all fall.

I tried bagging them. I tried a vac/shredder. I tried a sweeper. My conclusion was that anything that involves bagging them just blows buttski because it’s 3X the work. First you have to pile them, then bag them somehow, then haul them.

Finally, just by luck, I hit on the solution–a Snapper self-propelled mower with the “Ninja” mulching blade. I cannot believe the difference and how easy it is.

Just drive the Snapper over the leaves. If there’s a lot of leaves, drive over them twice. That special Ninja 2-level double blade thingy cuts them up like cigarette tobacco and they disappear into the lawn. One pass is usually enough, but if you’re really fussy, then run over them again and you cannot tell the leaves weren’t’ raked.

I just ran out and did a before/after picture. The side of the house took 10 mintues to go over.
See pics below, the Snapper, “after pic”, “before pic”. Granted, this isn’t a LOT of leaves, which leads me to the other point.

The Snapper works best when you do it at least once a week and when they are really coming off the trees, I do it twice. I think guys get tired of the leaves and figure “I’ll just do it once when they are all off the trees”. Wrong approach with a mulcher. Do it early and often and it’s easy.

Buy a Snapper mulcher self-propelled off of Craigslist and make sure it has (or you get) the 2-tier blade they call the “Ninja”. I got the one in the picture for $125.

Grouse

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I hope you don’t call what is pictured there a lot of leaves.

As I wrote in the post:

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Granted, this isn’t a LOT of leaves, which leads me to the other point…

The other point being if you sit on the couch and wait until you DO have a LOT of leaves, you’re making way, way harder than it should be. I can do my whole yard in under an hour, so there’s no excuse to NOT to shred leaves twice a week when they are really falling.

Even if I have to go over the areas with a lot of leaves twice to really mulch them up fine, it’s still less than half the time and energy I used to spend bagging and hauling.

Grouse

I get what you’re saying Grouse. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and everyone’s yard is different. My yard takes me about 1:15 to mow. With the Billy Goat, I can do everything in about 4 hours, so that’s the route I’ve gone.

I mulch mine as best I can. I’ve got a Toro recycler and it does a good job of mulching. And like Grouse says, if you stay on top of them there is not much bagging at all if any. When I have a lot of leaves that blow in from the neighbors then I use my Blower/Vac.

Ive got like 30 trees in my yard and no matter what it sucks. My neighbor blows his into the street and I pisses me off. I have enough of my own and one good south wind I have his too.

hnd wrote:

let them blow into the corn field and creek to the east of me.

^^^This or I let them blow into the woods south or west of me. I just have to hope for no south wind

Sometimes the wife helps them along with the John Deere zero turn

My yard isn’t too bad, mostly red pine needles and some leaves. I use a rake and backpack blower, then compost them in a low spot.

I dropped the deck and scalped the lawn yesterday. It makes fall and spring cleanup so much easier.

But if I had a lot of leaves to deal with….. I’d use the this

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I mulch mine as well. No bags, no burning, no excessive amounts of raking. I just am sure to have sharp, balanced blades and let the mower do the rest. In x2 passes over everything there’s not a fingernail sized piece left anywhere. I also do NOT fertilize my lawn. It’s a waste of money when leaves and a little over-seeding each year do the trick.

rake them into the woods

I mulch them. Even if they’re ankle deep and I have to run over them four times, it still takes less time than the collecting/bagging/transporting/dumping routine.

After doing this for several years now, my yard looks spectacular. I’ve been in this house since 1983 and this summer (for the first time in my life) people would stop and compliment my yard. Incredible.

S.R.

I continually mulch them until most the leaves are down or winter is going to be here to stay, then bag/rake them and put them in the garden and till them into the soil. I think it’s good for the garden too, but don’t really care if it is or not as it makes my life easier than disposing them elsewhere.

My first job when I moved to the cities was lawn care and primarily mowing. Most of our lawn was on lake minnetonka in the Wayzata area, soo multi million dollar bungalows I mean fortresses. We NEVER bagged anything other than spring thatching. When it came to fall we switched out our normal blades for gator blades which on the back side that bends upwards was serrated instead of being solid and we ran them leaves over till they confetti,and it didn’t matter how thick they were them gators chewed them up. We’d do the same in the summer when the grass was growing at it’s peak at it’s worst we’d go over 3 times and follow up with the backpack blower to “spread it out”. but when I get a house mulching is the way I’ll go.

I mulch them whenever they are thin enough but when they really come down I bag them instead because my regular mower will never mulch them all well enough. I usually fill 40-50 yard bags by the end of the season.

I’d love a machine for my one stupid oak tree. As it stands now I bag with my mower and bag that in a lawn bag. Or I blow and mulch with the Toro leaf blower and vac. Both options are time consuming and no where near as fun as just mowing. Everything just fills up too fast so 1 bag session I can be dumping the leaves 10-12 times.

I take them to the local recycle center. I have to pay to drop them off in the cities but its free at my cabin. I let them sit on the ground all winter at the cabin figuring all the good stuff leaches out and feeds my excuse for a lawn.

greig john wrote:

Some mowers are WAY better than others at mulching.
I use a Toro Super Recycler, and it’s the single best mulching mower I’ve ever used.

Yes, totally agree. Some mowers are just designed for mulching and do a much better job.

I have also heard great things about the Toro Super Recycler.

My grandpa was a Snapper dealer and I ended up with a bunch of his lawn/garden equipment. On a whim, I tried the Snapper mulching mower on leaves and I could not believe how good of a job it did. I haven’t been without one since.

Grouse

I leave em alone!

I mulch mine, does it effect the soil ph? Have alot of large oak trees nearby. My soil is a bit acid anyway so I usually throw down some pelltized lime this time of year-anyone else do that?

I do a combo. Mulch until about this weekend. Then bag for a couple weeks. (Riding mower/bagger) Then back to mulching. Too many leaves blow into my yard from the neighbors who choose to do nothing….. Leaves at the cabin all get mulched into the lawn.

Not sure if this was mentioned. But you can buy a quality mulching blade and install it on any crappy $99 mower. They do work wonders.

-J.