It's leaf cleanup time again. I'm going to rent a gas blower to save myself a day or two of raking labor.

I'd like to reduce the number of bags I have to fill with the leaves. Would it make sense to run the mower over them first to reduce their size before I blow them into a pile? Seems like they'd fit in the bags more efficiently. Or would this just be a disaster in the making either for the blowing or the bagging??

They'll stick to the grass if mowed. I'd "leave" em whole.

I got the worst of them the other day, raking.

I just mow them to bits. Good for the grass. Looks ugly but then it snows anyhow.

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Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
I just mow them to bits. Good for the grass. Looks ugly but then it snows anyhow.

Better spread a lot of lime. Otherwise it will amp the acidity of the soil I believe.

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Originally posted by r0gue:

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
I just mow them to bits. Good for the grass. Looks ugly but then it snows anyhow.

Better spread a lot of lime. Otherwise it will amp the acidity of the soil I believe.

Funny thing is the back yard with all the leaves has nice thick grass. The front yard with no leaves is pretty poor. Extremely sandy soil for me.

I never rake them, I just much them up with the mower.

But if you plan to bag them, you don't want to chop them up. You're just turning thousands into hundreds of thousands that are smaller and harder to pick up.

I blow them away from the sides, out of corners, and out of the gardens--spreading them out; run over them with the mower--discharging back onto the lawn; run over them, again, picking them up this time, then dump it all into the gardens for mulch.

By mid-spring or so they've mostly broken down.

Our soil is mostly clay. But, after 25 years or so of doing the above, the gardens all have nice , rich dirt in them.

And no leaf bagging.

Alternatively: Just run over 'em a couple times with a mower, and leave 'em on the lawn.

Btw: Rent a blower? Assuming you're going to have to do this again next season, why would you rent a blower?

I have a Black & Decker combination leaf blower and leaf vacuum. I blow the leaves into piles, then reverse the operation and suck them into the capture bag. They go through the fan blades where they are mulched, so when I empty the bag into the garden refuse bag, everything comes out as tiny bits.

This one.

Depends on how much you're dealing with. Just a light covering you might get away with just mulching. A thick layer best to bag and bagging after mulching results in less bags.

We have a lot of mature trees and simply racking and bagging would result in 65-75 large bags. If mulched it's about half of that. If my wife and I tried to do this it would take us at least two full days, probably more. No matter, I have my lawn service do it. Four guys with the proper equipment will mulch, blow, rake and bag in about 3-4 hours. $300 and worth every penny. I have it done the week before Christmas, as in this part of Texas they don't come down completely until mid December.

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
Would it make sense to run the mower over them first to reduce their size before I blow them into a pile?

No

quote:

Or would this just be a disaster in the making either for the blowing or the bagging??

Yes

Leaves blow nicely as designed.
It is more difficult and time consuming to blow little pieces getting stuck between blades of grass.
It is more difficult to rake-up pieces and place in a bag.

Blow, place in bag, sit on bag, repeat.

quote:

Originally posted by kimber1911:

quote:

Originally posted by Oat_Action_Man:
Would it make sense to run the mower over them first to reduce their size before I blow them into a pile?

No

quote:

Or would this just be a disaster in the making either for the blowing or the bagging??

Yes

Leaves blow nicely as designed.
It is more difficult and time consuming to blow little pieces getting stuck between blades of grass.
It is more difficult to rake-up pieces and place in a bag.

Blow, place in bag, sit on bag, repeat.

Our house is on 4+ acres of OLD trees. We get cubic miles of leaves down every fall. I have a backpack blower that churns out a very healthy stream of air. In our case, we have lots of room to blow them off the lawn, up into the trees where we have no lawn. They break down there. Takes a little longer for them to break down but that does not matter.

If we needed/wanted to dispose of the leaves we can bag them and haul them to the landfill. If I were going to do that, I would just take the bags there, dump them out and bring the bags back for refilling. When done, save the bags for next year.

I kind of joke about the 4 cubic miles of leaves, but not by much!

"Leaves blow nicely as designed.
It is more difficult and time consuming to blow little pieces getting stuck between blades of grass.
It is more difficult to rake-up pieces and place in a bag."

That is probably the case for the average home grade blower, but the commercial back-pack style blowers have enough air speed and volume to blow away anything that's not attached. The lawn guys that do mine have no problem blowing and corralling finely mulched leaves. They usually blow them into a pile on my driveway or the street and then rake them into giant sized bags.

I just did our yard with the bagging mower. Works pretty well, just lower it some to pick 'em up. We used a rake to clean up around the edges and dumped it all in large plastic bags. Now, if only the folks across the street were half as motivated. This is where 90% of the flippin stuff comes from.

I laugh at my neighbors who put twenty bags of leaves out for the trash pickup.
On the times when I don't just mulch them where they fall, I just pile them up in the corner of the garden... pretty quickly they're a small fraction of their former volume.. and then they're topsoil.

When I had a large yard, I used a mulching mower. I used a blower to clean up corners and other areas that trapped leaves. Gutters had a good cover on them. And a prevailing wind blew 95% of the problem over onto the lawn of the elementary school.
So the school, which was using my tax money, was also dealing with my leaves.
Worked out well.

My lawn tractor does a great job sucking them up and turning them to bits in the process. But I just started mulching and not bagging. I have very sandy soil under my topsoil so I need the organic stuff.

quote:

Btw: Rent a blower? Assuming you're going to have to do this again next season, why would you rent a blower?

+1
Keep an eye on Craig's list. I bought a nice, used Stihl blower for less than you'd probably rent for a weekend.
I used to use an electric blower, but the cord got to be too much of a pain.

Another advocate for buying a blower. It’s useful all season. Blowing clippings that make their way onto the driveway etc. I even clean the dirt out of the garage with the blower.

A couple of years ago, my FIL "mulched" the leaves on the front lawn with his riding mower. Had some lawn problems in the spring, too much acid! I bought a gas blower (Husqvarna) and blow the leaves now into the woods, when the wind is not competing. Today, I ran the riding mower with a bagger attachment, then blew the whole front yard with the blower. I was surprised at how well the blower took care of even the mulched leaves.

Either way, get yourself a good blower. Works on powder snow an inch or less, too!