What's your technique for raking leaves in the fall?I was on the phone with a co-worker today who was working from home. She started out by saying, "I'm watching my husband working out in the yard, and I'm worried that he is nuts."
I had to ask.
She thought he was nuts because of how he was cleaning up leaves in their yard. First he vacuumed up all the leaves. Then he mowed the lawn. Then he vacuumed up the leaves again. I asked what he did with all the leaves he had vacuumed up. "He takes them across the street and dumps them in the vacant lot".
Turns out, by the way, that they have no trees in their yard (yet) and all the leaves he vacuumed up came from the trees in that vacant lot across the street.
Wonder what is going to happen to the leaves he dumped over there? I'm guessing they are going to blow right back into their yard.
He must like to vacuum up leaves.
So that's one technique for cleaning up leaves in the fall, vacuum them up and dump them across the street in a vacant lot. Repeat.
When I was growing up, it seemed like every weekend in the fall we were forced to rake leaves. When my parents moved in to our house, there were no trees, but my Dad planted a lot of sugar maples and other trees and then watered and fertilized them all the time so they grew big fast. Thus it seemed that right at the time when we were old enough to be able to rake leaves and old enough not to want to do it, we had a lot of leaves to rake.
We learned to rake the leaves on to big sheets of plastic and then drag them back to the vegetable garden where my Dad did one of three things with them, depending on his mood.
In the early days, before the practice was banned, he burned the leaves. All the neighbors did. The fall air on the weekends was thick with the smoke of burning leaves.
Some years he dug trenches in the garden, or had us help dig trenches, and then we dumped the leaves in the trenches and buried them.
Other years, we spread the leaves out over the surface of the garden and he roto-tilled them into the soil.
That's still mighty rich soil where he had that garden and where my sister now has her vegetable garden.
Every year, of course, we also jumped into the piles of leaves at least once. The temptation was just too great!
In my current yard, I don't yet have enough leaves to worry too much about. But I do have two leaf rakes already, one metal, one plastic, so I'll be ready when I do have a lot of leaves.
(Yes, I do seem to acquire a lot of garden tools, not just hoes, but apparently now rakes, too.)
My current technique for leaf removal is just to mow over any leaves when I mow the lawn so they are chopped up a bit and will enrich the soil right where they are. But it is going to be a few more weeks before I have any leaves to mow over.
See, my Red Maple (Acer rubrum) is just barely starting to turn.
So what's your technique for raking leaves? Is leaf raking an art or a science? Do you prefer plastic or metal leaf rakes? Do you vacuum the leaves up or just mow over them? Or do you just leave them right where they fall?
Comments
Depending on how my back feels, I use a combination of raking and/or the leaf blower. Using the blower on leaves is rather like herding cats, but I do it anyway. The mulched ones go on the flower beds and the rest are going to enrich my DDIL's soon-to-be vegetable garden.
Sometimes I still jump into a pile of leaves just for the heck of it.
That said, I do have fond memories of burning leaves with my dad when I was a kid.
The back yard ones are raked into a pile in the corner of the yard where they slowly, slowly turn into compost (last year's pile is still there - it's probably a bit too shady to be a good compost spot). This year? Maybe now that we have those wonderful raised beds, the back yard leaves will go into those.
Type of rake - whichever one is available - LOL!!
Interesting side note--the tree arborist who lovingly worked on the scarlet oak and the sugar maple, took all the small debris, sent it through a mulcher, then raked it into a large pile around the base of the tree. He said it was a crime not to because as it breaks down it provides nutrients to the tree. Best mulch there is (according to him!).
If you feel this strong desire to re-experience those childhood memories, feel free to come on by and help with this falls clean up. LOL!!
Unfortunately, my parents seem to have active senior lives these days, so it's not always possible to employ this time-proven technique. So for now, I'm also mowing the leaves. Pretty soon, however, I'll have to come up with another solution.
--Robin (Bumblebee)
But I kind of miss jumping in the piles of leaves and then burning them. We always got to toast marshmallows when the pile had burned down a bit.
My weapon of choice is the bamboo rake too. It has a very organic and natural feel to it.
Our trees here are like your red maple - just starting to turn and haven't dropped many leaves yet.
Can you believe this warm October weather ?
I may also be using my Mom in-law's Mantis tiller to work them in, and then pile some more on.
Ontario Master Gardeners advise gardeners to do just what you do. ;-) Mow the leaves and leave them where they are to enrich the soil. No, I'm not an MG but I have a couple of friends who are.
About the person ripping off blogs:
I just googled “maxblog gardening” and this web page came up
http://gardening "dot" maxblog "dot" eu/?p=3634
Look under categories. It looks like someone is cataloging blogs.
* Blogroll (536)
* flowers (507)
* gardening (520)
* plants (493)
* trees (549)
* Uncategorized (1052)
Check it out to see what you think!
By the way, sorry. That last deleted post was mine because I suddenly realized I posted the URL with the "actual dot" and not the word "dot."
Dirty Knees
Years back, my husband blew them into piles and used them in the vegetable garden, turning the soil each time.
Now we mow them with the grass and net them out of the pond. We don't have a huge amount of leaves and never use a rake anymore.
When I lived in Bremerton, I raked up all the leaves I could with a nice metal rake, and composted them. I didn't have enough, but we were allowed to go to the City parks and rake all the leaves we wanted to for free. Thoughts of tom Sawyer getting his friends to whitewash the fence for him come to mind.
Now, Jim goes around with the mower and mows UP the leaves into the grass catcher. We pile them in teh compost bins and sometimes we run them through the compost grinder and sometimes we don't.
I have found that the best thing to do with them is to load them up into 33 gallon black plastic garbage bags. It is very good if there is some grass mixed in with the leaves, but not if the grass has a lot of seed heads.
I pile these bags in a long line at the back of the property where they won't be too unsightly. Once the are in place, I poke the bags several times with my pitchfork. Then I water them well. Snow falls on them, water leaks into them. The sun heats up the contents since the bags are black. If I feel real energetic, I will turn them over a couple of times. In the spring they are all ready to use as mulch, usually about 3/4 composted.
This year I'm mowing as much as possible before that happens because I'm digging up the front lawn next year to make beds.
I love the bagging them idea, I'm going to save some for that. Thanks!
My neighbor cut down all her trees so she didn't have to deal with "those leaves". I cried.
Let the raking begin!
Carol at May Dreams Gardens
This year, however, I am going to suck up the leaves into my new blower and mulch them and then throw them on the beds. That way I'm not lifting up carpets of congealed leaves in the spring. I'll just leave them there for infinity!