Dealing with leaves

Built my place back in the 70's on a bare hill behind the farm buildings and planted dozens of ash and maple trees never thinking about all the leaves I would have some day. The place is like a park now but is there leaves. bought a larger leave blower some years ago and wait for a west wind, which was yesterday and today, 15 to 20 mph, blow the whole mess out into the hay field and use an old Mathews green chopper and a old barge box to suck and chop and load, usually have about 5 wagon loads, just sayin, another job done for the year. how do you guys deal with leaves??
 
I've got oak trees, plenty of oaks on the acres that surround the house, and tens of acres of woods. On the mowed land I seal the mower and chop as I mow, chop as I mow, chop as I mow. Can't do that with the AC-B with the Woods belly mower because the PTO is too slow for that, so for that I use a couple of garden tractors, about the only work they get. I used to burn them, and don't get me wrong, I love the smell of burning leaves and used to stand down wind of it. But, I found that chopping and mowing is easier, and makes great black top soil as it decays thoughout the Spring.

Mark
 
Grasshopper with a vac system. It will almost make dust out of maple leaves if they are nice and dry. The oak and cottonwood leaves, not so much. Much easier than raking or blowing though.
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Lots of oaks here. I have an old lawn vac to use. Slurp leaves up, load on trailer, & take to city compost yard. It used to be free, but starting this fall, they charge 5 bucks a load for "out of city" users, only open 2 days a week. But good compost is free for private use, no commercial operators, load it yourself, take all you want.
Willie
 
We have maples and poplars. I bolt a plate on the discharge of the RZT and grind them up. It takes care of them in one pass but it takes 2 or 3 passes to really clean it up well. I enjoy it.
 
We mulch em with the lawn tractor, works great and big piles of leaves disappear, makes great soil. We even blow them out of the flower beds then mulch em, easier to do it now when they are dry then mess with em in the spring.
 

Mulching is good for the lawn but you need to be adding lime to counteract the acid from the decomposition.
 
(quoted from post at 08:21:01 10/26/14) Do you know anyone with a Boeing Chinook HC2?
Get them to fly over your yard and hover for a few minutes.

<img src="http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2013/08/05/p1816r2fcak0q1hp513si10sm15kb4/big.jpg">

Thats a CH46 Sea Knight. Note the single nose gear where the Chinook has 2. If I had a dollar for every hour I spent on one, you know the drill. But yeah, that would do it!
 
Wifey doesn't like them blowing around the house so I bought one of those yard sweepers. I hook it up once a year and then watch as 14 trips are made to dump them in the lot where the cattle spread and mash thm in. We've had rain this week so it won't be happenening today. About the time that will be possible so will the rest of the beans so I will be combining beans instead of hooking that thing on. I wonder if anyone else knows how to put that on? We claim we don't. I guess this is the year to find out.
 
I have an all wooded lot......Yes, all hardwood trees. I have about a 1/3 of an acre of grass for a break around my home. I bought a walk behind cub cadet lawnmower last year. I take that cub and start in the middle of the grass and work outward in a spiral and it shoots the leaves into the woods. I also have a Husky leaf blower to help out, and a 14 year old son. No raking, and no bagging of leaves.
 
I vacuum them up and dump them on the curb. The town has a truck to vacuum them and they compost leaves and grass. The truck has a hose that's about 12 inches in diameter. Hal
 
Didn't think of that. Thanks for the tip. Have been mulching for years and never had a problem, but always have lime leftover that can give it a shot.

Thanks

Mark
 
I have run them through the (small square) baler and used them for bedding the chickens some years. Did some yesterday and it seems they were a bit too damp. Really pack tight in the baler, I think that will be the last time for that adventure.
 
I do not have much of a leaf problem anymore but when I did, I ran the Kubota with MMM over the leaves and sucked them up into the rear mounted grass catcher.

After the leaves went through the mower and the blades of the powered discharge vacuum, they were ground up quite well.

I usually did this the last time I mowed the grass in the fall, and it was the only time that I installed the vacuum/grass catcher.

Dean
 
I have 2 places. Each place takes about 5 attempts. One place I have to mow leafs before I can use the rear bagger. I put the leafs in trash bags for next years garden cover to keep weeds down. The other place I have an agi-vac trailer. Garden has been cleaned off before those leafs are put on garden in fall. Again, I do it in about 5 attempts or there will be too many leafs. Any extra leafs go on mulch pile, next to garden. They will be mixed in with horse poo. Makes great mircle grow mulch. Usually, the last of my leafs will come down after Thanksgiving.

I also discovered the best way to get leafs out of flower beds is to use a rotary nozzle on pressure washer. I do that after flowers have beeen frosted off and the DR trimmer has clipped them back.

I refuse to use a rake.
 
I built this rig 28 years ago. This is the third tractor I've used it on. They go through a 5' deck then an eight horse blower with a serrated fan. I get about 12 trailer loads a year off my 3 acres. Makes a really great compost pile if you have a place for it.
a172497.jpg
 
On a side note: If you are using a side discharge deck to mulch, running over them backward will make them disappear better. I do this in the spring with the neighbors leaves that "migrate" over. I only have the collection unit mounted in the fall.
 
I have a 2 1/2 acre yard and don't pickup leaves. I grind them up with mower (While still dry) and blow them back into the yard . In the spring I go over the yard with a rotary hoe and put on 1/2 a ton of granular lime along with some weed and feed.
 
The leaves that I cant shatter with the lawn mower get raked up and thrown in the compost ring. The finished compost goes on the garden.
 
I use a lawn sweeper to gather them into a huge pile, then pitch them into the baler and throw the bales in the woods or swamp, works good.
 
Be careful of using a riding mower to grind up the leaves. I responded to a lawn mower fire today. The guy was grinding up leaves and they built up in front of the deck until they came in contact with the muffler. The rest is history.

The leaves can also build up on the deck to a point where the belt or pulley friction can start a fire.

I am not saying don't grind up the leaves because I do it myself. Just be careful.
 
I use my snapper with the bag. bag them up and spread them out over the garden. Then I get my trusty 9n and plow the garden.Leaves aren't a problem anymore. Did it just today.
 
If they're completely covering the lawn, I have to fend off my wife's nagging until we get a good windy day. Problem solved. My FIL insists that the leaves ruin the lawn if left over the winter. I've tested that theory for many years and my lawn is as thick and healthy as any.
 
With all the trees around my house there are always leaves and acorns, the wife bought a blower and vacuum shredder she uses and burns them in the burn barrel, I just let them build up until I take the Craftsman GT6000 out to mow. then it is just mow the yard in a circle and let the mower blow them into my burn pile then all a little fuel and a match sit back and tend the fire or it is get out the sweeper and spend 3 days burning them in the burn barrel.
 
I used to love/plant trees.

I figured out some time ago that as trees age, they can become a hazard, (not to mention a NUISANCE) so in these later years, I remove all I can without worrying SWMBO.

The interesting side effect of that is that as the tree count goes down, so does the leaf mess!

There's several more in the yard that accidentally ingested some 2-4D this fall and will need to be removed next summer!

Oh, DARN!
 
(quoted from post at 22:00:05 10/27/14) I used to love/plant trees.

I figured out some time ago that as trees age, they can become a hazard, (not to mention a NUISANCE) so in these later years, I remove all I can without worrying SWMBO.

The interesting side effect of that is that as the tree count goes down, so does the leaf mess!

There's several more in the yard that accidentally ingested some 2-4D this fall and will need to be removed next summer!

Oh, DARN!
This house is over 139 years old and after I bought it I have been cutting down trees and pruning them back as much as I can thy are pretty tall and close to the house so I have to be careful where thy fall. SO what is this 2-4D stuff I cut some of the trees down and thy just start all over in a few weeks thy are 6' tall again. At my age climbing them to cut them is sort of out. These Mo. trees are a pain as is the grass that needs to be cut EVERY WEEK, not like AZ. once a month.
 
(quoted from post at 10:49:19 10/28/14)
(quoted from post at 22:00:05 10/27/14) I used to love/plant trees.

I figured out some time ago that as trees age, they can become a hazard, (not to mention a NUISANCE) so in these later years, I remove all I can without worrying SWMBO.

The interesting side effect of that is that as the tree count goes down, so does the leaf mess!

There's several more in the yard that accidentally ingested some 2-4D this fall and will need to be removed next summer!

Oh, DARN!
This house is over 139 years old and after I bought it I have been cutting down trees and pruning them back as much as I can thy are pretty tall and close to the house so I have to be careful where thy fall. SO what is this 2-4D stuff I cut some of the trees down and thy just start all over in a few weeks thy are 6' tall again. At my age climbing them to cut them is sort of out. These Mo. trees are a pain as is the grass that needs to be cut EVERY WEEK, not like AZ. once a month.

The owners of one of my fields are an old couple in their nineties. They have trees shrubs and vines growing all over their little cape house. Their daughter, who is too heavy to do much lives with them. I told her this last summer that something needed to be done. She told me that she knew but that she couldn't do it herself and her parents don't have the money, so I told her that I would. Yesterday I went over and cut a lot of bittersweet vines, sumac, locust, and alder along with some over grown planted shrubs and some small maples. For about eight years they have been doing very little lawn mowing, just a small patch of front lawn so I have been mowing the sides and back with my woods M-5, being careful to stay off the failed leach field.
 

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