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What do you do with leaves in the fall?
Personally I rake them up or suck them up with my mower and put them at the curb.
If you have another thing you do, say it below.

lawn mower fanatic said:

What do you do with leaves in the fall?
Personally I rake them up or suck them up with my mower and put them at the curb.
If you have another thing you do, say it below.

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I don't have a that problem really. Any lawns where I have leaves are minimal at best so most of the time the Gator Blades take care of the problem.

Our county has two locations where leaves and grass can be dropped off. They then chop up the debris and make huge compost piles out of it. In the spring, any county resident can stop by and pick up free compost. I have taken several loads over on my trailer, and they have charged me $6 per load to drop it off. The trailer is 6.5 x 9 x 2.5 feet, or roughly 5.5 cubic yards. I guess that the compost isn't totally free, since I pay to drop off my debris, but I think that it's still a good deal.

Mulch them into the grass for me.

Gregster said:

Mulch them into the grass for me.

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I tried mulching for a couple of years and I had more weeds than ever before. So I put my bagger back on and started composting. I used to burn my cuttings. Composting takes a lot less effort and time The Hi-Vac on my Snapper picks up a lot of loose topsoil but I recover it in the long run.

I blow most of them in to the woods.

slammed said:

I blow most of them in to the woods.

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I wish I could do that!

slammed said:

I blow most of them in to the woods.

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DO WHAT............TO WHO?????

Last year, the city picked up leaves, curb-side, only one time. Of course, I lost the grass!
This year, I'm raking and/or blowing leaves into several piles, then raking them onto a tarp. I haul the tarp to the compost pile, one tarp-full at a time, and run the mower over them. Woo-hoo! Talk about a huge time-saver! Add all the leave mulch to kitchen scrapings and wood ash, and I get yummy compost for vegetable gardening the next summer.
Then, there's the problem of the neighbors' leaves, which don't get touched until every leaf is off the tree. I have to keep them raked on the median between the properties, as I do the mowing, fertilizing, over-seeding, raking, etc. By the time the tree is empty, most of them are in my yard. I think those kids are on to something! What do you think?

I mulch them, sweep them up with the lawn sweeper, and dump them in the burn pile.

JD X485SE said:

I mulch them, sweep them up with the lawn sweeper, and dump them in the burn pile.

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Does the lawn sweeper get all of the leaves up (as much as bagging them?) because some people on here say it doesn't work as well.

I have a large leaf compost pile. It has between 40 or 50 cu. yd. piled. Each year I pick up all of my leaves with my vac. It's one you pull behind your tractor. I empty the loads next to the pile and then I use my MF with loader to pile them as high as I can. From time to time I rework the pile bring the inside out and the outside in. The pile is elongated so I pile at one end and used the broken down stuff at the other end for planting etc. I have been using this pile system for 26 years. I always have plenty of compost.

I had a cousin who used to take DRY leaves and cram them up under his trailer in the fall and that acted like insulation and kept the pipes from freezing! They would remove some of the skirts on the trailer to get the leaves in, then replace the metal panels. Then in the Spring he'd rake them out and mulch them on the lawn. Sounds Eco Friendly to me.

DaveTN said:

I had a cousin who used to take DRY leaves and cram them up under his trailer in the fall and that acted like insulation and kept the pipes from freezing! They would remove some of the skirts on the trailer to get the leaves in, then replace the metal panels. Then in the Spring he'd rake them out and mulch them on the lawn. Sounds Eco Friendly to me.

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WOW...I have never heard of that. It might be a fire hazard, though!!

DaveTN said:

I had a cousin who used to take DRY leaves and cram them up under his trailer in the fall and that acted like insulation and kept the pipes from freezing! They would remove some of the skirts on the trailer to get the leaves in, then replace the metal panels. Then in the Spring he'd rake them out and mulch them on the lawn. Sounds Eco Friendly to me.

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Never thought of doing this I bet it works good.

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Carscw said:

Never thought of doing this I bet it works good.

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And it won't affect your skin if you touch it like regular insulation does!

Carscw said:

Never thought of doing this I bet it works good.

Sent from my iPhone using LMF

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With a mobile home it's easy to get pipes frozen in winter. Insulation under the floor only does so much but the leaves pushed up in and around the pipes did a great job keeping a huge air space insulation and cold winter winds from blowing through. PLUS the mobile home stayed a lot warmer too, especially the floor! I don't think there's any more fire danger in the leaves being in there as not being in there really. Field mice might consider it a good winter home, but they'd come in anyway! I've told lots of other people about what he did with the leaves. In fact on the farm we used to take leaves and old dry hay and stuff it in the cinder block well house to keep the tank and pipes from freezing, even after we put wrap on the pipes! I guess that's where he got the idea to try it under his mobile home.

i let the wind blow them and i mulch them into the grass

Compost pile. We have mild winters here. I live 30 miles from the Gulf of Mexico and, normally, our winter weather is not severe enough to slow down the composting process.

I just leave them where they are... Because I'm lazy

I mulch them up with my yard machines mower and burn them in my outside fire pit. If I don't feel like doing that then I just put them in a pile in the woods.

I do none of the choices you have, as I rake and blow the leaves onto a tarp to transfer them to my burn pile to burn along with the sticks and limbs that fall also along with any other scrap wood I have. I then mix the ash in my garden.

I mow them and let them make dirt.

piloto said:

I mow them and let them make dirt.

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Yep I do the same

I use my push mowers (both are rear bagged) to suck the leaves up. Dump them in my cart and haul them down to the compost pile.

I mulch mine right where they lay.

lawn mower fanatic said:

Does the lawn sweeper get all of the leaves up (as much as bagging them?) because some people on here say it doesn't work as well.

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They work, but It will take 2-3 passes. Getting the brush height and travel speed right helps. Mulching while pulling a sweeper is a very effective combination.

I bag them while mowing and if I'm mowing in a city where there is trash pickup I put them in trash bags then put them on the curb for an extra charge, but if a city/town doesn't have trash pickup I put the leaves in my GMC dump truck and haul them off to the town dump for an extra charge.

piloto said:

I mow them and let them make dirt.

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The same here.

I only do leaves where I can dispose of them on the property on nearby. Between spring and fall cleanup, I will collect in excess of 2,000 bushels and this is just six properties!!! Two of these properties have more pine needles than leaves. My Scag Tiger Cub with a collection system does a great job!!!

Mad Mackie said:

I only do leaves where I can dispose of them on the property on nearby. Between spring and fall cleanup, I will collect in excess of 2,000 bushels and this is just six properties!!! Two of these properties have more pine needles than leaves. My Scag Tiger Cub with a collection system does a great job!!!

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I have a client and I do the maintenance at their summer camp and once a month I go there to leaf blow just pine nettles. Sometimes twice or three times in fall and spring.

Due to dual septic system field lines in my front yard....no trees. Have a tree line at the back of my property, but not enough leaves in the Fall on my lawn that I couldn't put them in a Kroger bag and put them on my neighbor's front porch(my vote:0)
If I really wanted to be mischievous, I'd put some poop in the bag, set the leaves on fire and ring the doorbell & run....if we hadn't been neighbors for 24 years I'd worry about some repercussions:0)

Back in the olden days, my wild and wicked days, on the last couple of mowings, I would just lower my mower to one of its lowest settings. Then I would wait for the winds to take the leaves onto someone else . Now as I have become a good neighbor, I just mow/mulch the leaves where they lay. I have 3 sycamore trees across the street to the north of me that drop dinner plate size leaves. At the end of the season I have about 1 1/2 to 2" of chopped leaves. But when spring comes, they are all gone. Its amazing how this stuff disappears like that. So thats what works for me.

We live on 40 acres of heavy rural forestland....oak, walnut, hickory, etc., and if leaves had any monetary value, we would be rich. In the Fall, I go around the yard every couple of weeks, and blow them into the forest with my Stihl backpack blower....if I leave them sit all Winter, it makes the soil too acidic, and allows moss to grow. Then, once I have cleared the bulk of them, I make one pass with the mulching plate on the riding mower, and grind up what few are left. We have a gravel road with our driveway sitting near the bottom of a gentle 1/4 mile slope, and the roadside ditch fills up with leaves which would clog up the culvert under the driveway when the Spring rains come. So...a couple of times in the Fall, I blow the leaves off the roadside yard into the ditch, and have a nice bonfire....while keeping a close watch on the ditch, with plenty of water handy, so as to not start a forest fire. AHHH...the smell of burning leaves in the Fall...one of life's little pleasures. Plus, keeping the ditch cleared of dry leaves substantially lessens the chance of someone throwing a lit cigarette out their car window, and starting a fire.

I just leave an where they lay, unless they blow against the house.

I have lots of leaves on my property at Fall. When I'm done mowing the grass, I mow the leaves 2 or 3 times. It does two things :

- Helps leaves become dirt faster since they are now in smaller pieces.
- Cleans up the mower deck pretty good. Kind of a mild sandblast.

Blast them into the woods whenever I can. https://youtu.be/8DXVh0wPs7g

I pick them up with my Agri-fab for compost.

Mulch