Recently moved to a 2.7 acre wooded lot and LOTS of trees in Georgia. We can burn Nov to May but don't want to burn leaves with dry leaves on trees in the area. LOTS of leaves piled on the ground and my inclination is to just blow the fallen leaves on top of those already there. We have a trash container for green stuff but the leaves would overwhelm it in no time leaving no room for trimmings. Suggestions welcomed!
I live on 20 wooded acres in northern Minnesota so I am familiar. Recognize that you not longer live in town. you live in the woods and you cannot be expected to remove every leaf in the county.
If you have a proper lawn then the leaves have to be removed from that area. the tool of choice is the backpack style blower. You could just blow the leaves into the woods at the edge of the lawn. If you remove
90% of the leaves then that's good enough.if you don't like that idea then you could buy a shredder. Blow the leaves into a big pile then shred them then blow into the woods. Shredding reduces the volume of the leaves dramatically. Alternatively, if you have a garden, leaves are an excellent addition to any compost pile. In Minnesota it is illegal to put lawn waste into the houshold garbage and every city and county has a compost site where you can bring your leaves and clippings.
Me, I don't do anything with my leaves. I just ignore them. People in town are obliged to rake or blow them. But we country folk have no such obligation. Just ignore the leaves and they will ignore you. (-:
My mower has a side chute attachment. It makes fast work of sycamore and maple leaves - they come out the chute about half the size of corn flakes. I rake very little, unless I wait too long for the mower to be able to handle the volume.
We live on about the same size property, in the middle of the woods here in Michigan. The technique I have been using for the last 5 years is to just blow the leaves off the driveway and other areas onto the lawn and run the mulching mower. It usually takes twice, about a month apart, to take care of all the leaves that fall. You can rake the small leaf particles into the soil, or just let the ants take care of burying the mulch. They make little anthills all over the place and then the rain washes the dirt onto the top of the mulch. Ants are very good at "churning" the soil. The soil retains water much better and the lawn is much healthier since I started doing this.
If it's woods we're talking about, I'd just leave the leaves there. That's what I do. The leaves provide a natural mulch. If you remove them, next you'll have weeds and all sorts of volunteer plants growing.
If it's lawn then they need to be removed. I blow most of mine into the wooded area. The ones near the street get blown there, where the town comes by and vacuums them up. I guess that's one small perk for the $8500 a year in property tax here.
The suggestions mentioned so far are great. If you say your "inclination is to just blow the fallen leaves on top of those already". I take it to mean you want to blow them on top of leaves that already in your forested area. The problem with that method arises when the leaf pile gets too deep, the natural understory is somthered (I've seen that happen), which maybe good if lots of nonnative invasives, but not good if there are native plants there. Sounds like compositing is the way to go. And mulching or shredding helps greatly with that.
G'hillside
You live in the wood. Leaves belong there and are very natural for centuries that forests exist. . Just clear the lawn area around the house and driveways.
You're not going to try to put diapers on the wild animals too are you?
Do your lawn a favor and feed the leaves to it. Use a mulching mower, either rider or walkbehind. I have been doing mine that way for over
30 years and the lawn (such as it is) is improving. I have mulched maples leaf cover that was higher than the mower deck it works fine but may require two passes. The lawn will look like it has been 'pepper/salted' when done but a day later nothing will be visible.Second option is pile and compost
Third blow em into the wooded area but don't be surprised if mother nature rejects them and places them back on the lawn.
Harry K
If you've got enough other sources of nitrogen (grass clippings for example) and some kitchen scraps you *could* make a compost pile or bin for these.
Like everyone else said, leaves and "leaf mold" (partially decomposed leaves) make an excellent compost.
Just putting leaves into a pile, however, isn't a compost pile. Google compost piles if you're interested in this method.
That's funny, I've been putting leaves in a pile for years. When I dig it up a year or 2 later, I find something that sure looks like composted soil.
I have way too many leaves to be fooling around with a real compost pile.
Same here. One year I wanted a bunch of soil amendments. I had 3 connected lots (2 empty ) on the edge of the town. I asked them to dump all bagged leaves at my place. They were happy to do so as it saved them a long trip to the dump. By the time they quit I had a pile 8ft tall x20ft long that steamed and shrank all winter long. Beautiful stuff in the spring. I won't argue that done right it would be better "compost" but it will compost.
Harry K
On 15 Nov 2006, snipped-for-privacy@vcoms.net wrote in alt.home.repair:
You might try posting to alt.home.lawn.garden - it's a bit more active than rec.garden.
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