Leaf raking thoughts

Good or bad?
Leaf raking brings families together!

Today we took the kids to Moms house. I took meatloaf and potatoes to bake while we raked leaves. It all was nice. Bit cool, but pretty. Mom was tickled. When you get five (well four and 1/2, one teenager was a bit MIA, LOL) young people such as us working on her little yard, it looks like a big ol' work crew swept thru, to her. We had a good dinner, she got to be hostess and make her signature pumpkin pie, and didn't have much actuall cooking to do. Everybody seemed content.

My step mothers sister had one of those yards full of oaks; the family would go to her house for a fall dinner so they could all bag leaves while dinner cooked.

May be one of the last of outdoor tasks big enough that we justify getting together to work on. Kind of nice. What are your leaf raking thoughts?

Sally, My nieces and neighbor helped me today with raking. Then my neighbor & I drove the girls to Philly to catch the train back to NYC. At last, my fun neighbor and I went to a bar for burgers and brews and to laugh about the younger generation!!!

My real life profession and my DG & Internet obsession are performed sitting down, and that's about the only real break my poor feet get!!!! If I'm not out in the garden, then house chores await me. You know the drill.......

I'm to old and grumpy to rake leaves. Sooooo I mow and blow them with the riding mower and leaf blower. By observing the wind and the blow patterns they allmost all end up as a mulch topping to my many planted beds by this time chopped into smaller pieces. Yes they do blow around a bit over the winter but come spring my helper and I mow and blow some more. This time the half broken down leaves end up on the compost piles or redistributed to early planted flowers and gardens as mulch once again. We never move them further than a few feet to the nearest beds. Many of the smalls simply filter down into the grass. And yes a few near and in the front driveway make it to the street where the township leaf picker takes them to the township leaf piles. This is where we go in the spring to get trailer loads of two year old leaf mulch for our compost and additional mulches. Eventually we end up getting a load of wood mulch twice ground to top off the leaves and stop them from moving from place to place. These mulches are free for those who can hand load them. I pay all of six bucks to have a front end loader at the township lot load my trailer heaping full of the choice for any day. That service is available two days a week and anytime by chance. A batch of sticky buns often swings the deal into a done for free load. The buns likely cost as much but the guys then split with a free coffee on my way out allways on hand at their loafing shed between loading chores.

Anyway...........that sure beats raking for this old dude. :) The foundation plantings and many of the beds have been under permanent mulch for more than thirty years. Works for me. Earlier in this program I was just lazy.

Saw this forum and had to wade in.
I attended a Garden Show here last March and went to a talk by a notable gardner. He advocates using a mulching mower and leaving the leaves on the perennial beds just as Docgipe said, he never rakes,- works for me.-

I guess I should have mentioned the fact that the leaves once rotted or composted in place have roughly the same value as cow manure. It just takes them longer to get their goodies processed and offered to the plants. This is the simple principle that all of the layered mulching programs derive their value from. The old rule of thumb has never changed....If it rots it will return it's goodness to the soil and eventually to the worms both of which make excellent compost in due time.

as an arthritic I applauded the gardners topic.
It makes such good sence, He also lives in a city neighborhood and has his small front year and back yard turned into gardens so he never rakes.
We are all composted eventually.

Love that thought ge! This entire day project was just removing the leaves from my big flower bed 250' x 30 to 40'. I can't use these for mulch because of the Black Walnut leaves. I had raked this bed last Thursday and could not believe the amount of slime that had built up on the soil under the leaves. The BW's are bare now, so the next round of Maple leaves can be composted. I can't blow the beds as the mulch and recently added soil amendments would blow away. The raking helps mix those amendments further into the soil.

Doc, I owe all of my earth worms to the township mulch site. One of life's great blessings.

Sally, the Starbucks folks told me to just swing by the back of the store anytime and pick up the bags they leave out there.

I can see your problem. BW anyparts are toxic.

Sallyg,
In your case, and in most cases, raking is good when members of the family get off the couch and pitch in!! I can see that you had some quality time with the family, and that IS good. We have many huge oaks that are probably 8 ft around that dump truckloads of leaves every autumn. It takes several days to clean up this yeard!! The new landscaping rules stupulate that deciduous trees should not be more than 30% of your landscape, and 60% should be evergreen. Come see my yard to find out why.....

Both of my parents live 2,000 away in the Mid-West and in-laws are 5 hrs away south of here. They all have things under control, so don't need us now. I began to rake our backyard on Saturday and my 9-yr-old wanted to pitch in, which was a BIG surprise!! He actually took the rake from me!! I guess he is finally growing up.

My DH uses the mulching bag mower to chop and collect, so I rake them up in long rows and he goes over them with the mower. The problem with this is that you have to wait for the ground to dry, and it has been wet. I let the ones that stick in the beds stay for the winter. I have found less bugs eating my plants when I do this. I think it helps some beneficial insects this way, in addition to keeping weeds out to a degree. But I also think it gives cover to the chipmunks and bunnies so they can move about without being detected.

Bagging leaves isn't bad if the county collects them for mulching, but it is best if you can compost your own leaves. "A single leaf is a penny from heaven" (Organic Gardening quote). The benefits of composting cannot be measured in terms of dollars, but in sense.

Sally!

Thank you for bumping this on to another "Flower bed".....

I have been meaning to do it--as I stated earlier, but have been a bit busy in the last week or so with my daughter, Aina's, wedding to Mark this past Saturday. I had 5 people staying over here (family from NJ) and, of course all the cleaning and scrubbing of the bathrooms---changing sheets in all the beds--preparing some foods and goodies for the guests--Taking care of all the wedding flowers and arranging them as best I could--picking up the cake--etc...etc...etc....

It was a lovely, informal, small (17 people) Ceremony held at Boordy Vineyards.
Here's the "point de resistance"----the Wedding Ceremony was performed by my other daughter, Benita, from Seattle who ordained herself via the Internet.
It was cute! She was nervous and giggled her way throughout the Ceremony. The words were VERY appropriate (chosen by the couple)--the ring exchange--the pronouncing of man and Wife--etc.....
Because they have VERY limited funds--I gave mark my EX's old wedding ring. It fit him perfectly, all he had to do was have OUR engravings erased and put in theirs.
My daughter had a wedding ring made by a small, local Jeweler to compliment her engagement ring of some 10 years.....:o)

Food was catered and consisted of awesome appetizers only--(my favorite kind of a reception) NO sit-down dinner of stuffer chicken breasts! Barf.....
We drank a lot of wine (Boordy's--of course) and saluted the new Mr. and Mrs. with Champagne. They have been together for 18 years and are ages 52 and 43--so NO newlyweds, of sorts.....It was just LOVELY!!!!!!
Besides--I got to see my EX in a proud Papa role. It was neat that he and I could actually talk and communicate SOME! He has NOT kept in touch at all with me for 16 years! I have even seldom seen him, even though he lives here in Town. I think some "ice" was broken.....

His S.O. was there too, with her Mom and her Brother and his wife--but SHE, cordially, kept her distance and we never had any awkward moments where I would have been "forced" to be nice and congenial with her. SO! EVERYTHING worked out great!

Because of all this, I am sorry that I did not get to move this Thread up to a different "flower bed".....Meant to--just never got the time to decide what to call it.

Sally--I love the title you gave it! I was going to also go into, maybe, what "Winter Interests" anyone would be creating in their Gardens. Like--"What catches your eye in YOUR Winter Garden" as you look at it as is?
Please comment on this as well....when all the leaf-raking talk comes to an end.

And--just to connect you to the previous Thread--we came from HERE.....

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/902178/#new

Gita

Gita, I've been wanting to see a winter interest thread too. Can you please start one? The wedding sounds lovely!

Gita, the wedding sounded wonderful, glad it went well for all involved.
Didn't rake here. Hubby ran the mower over them, I guess when you get our age, raking leaves goes way down on the to-do-list.
Sally, glad you had a great leaf raking day, togetherness and fun makes it all worth while. It use to be a family thing when daughter was small, then she developed allergies in the fall so jumping in a pile of leaves was out. She got so sick they put her in the hospital for a few day to figure of what was wrong. Then we went the inhaler route for a while. She got better the older she got, now just some sinus issues.
So if someone get really sick after leaf raking, might check into it, it may not just be the flu.

The wedding sounded great, congrats to your daughter and son in law.
You have family from Jersey??? Why did I not know that?(maybe I did but don't remember) Where are they from?

Never knew about leaf allergies. We mulch ours with the machine too.

Jen, it may not have been the leaves themselves, but all the pollen, mold and dust on the leaves. Chris

Flowerjen,

My sister lives in Bloomfield and her 4 married daughters are all scattered about NW New jersey.

Stormy---

I will start another Thread...gotta go to work right now. Gita

I've heard of that place.
My nephew did a yeoman's job of raking leaves for an hour and a half, for an almost eight year-old anyway. I went outside to look, and he was hiding in the leaves with only his face visible. I thought, ok great I'll get the camera - he saw me coming with the camera and decided to run off. Rotten kid.

So Clay, Tackle him, glue him down and cover him with leaves! LOL

That's a good idea - mortar or construction adhesive should work.

Modern man's tar and feathers!! I'm laughing- running away, that's a pretty cute picture too!

My stepmom once had her nephew raking and she carefully hid a ten dollar bill with a small pile and made sure he found it of course. What fun!

Try tearing a bill in half and planting only one half.

Gita, Sounds like a lovely wedding. What a beautiful time of the year to wed.
I have been haveing a wonderful time leaf raking. I don't usually get to leaf rake as we don't bother much at our own house. We don't have a lot of large trees and what we get from the hedgerow we usually leave in place until spring when I clean out the flower beds alittle. This year we spent just a few hours in the afternoon up at Mom's house they usually take care of it but we gave a hand this year. Yesterday and today I spent some time raking at my daughters Jen. She is very pregant so I thought I would give a helping hand. She has a huge sweet gum in back and a large dogwood out front, and then I'll probably spend some time down at Josh's house. He has huge old trees and I think there might be a foot of leaves covering his yard. I have so been enjoying the cool weather along with the leaft raking Ric and I have been collecting firewood. So I have been outside working almost everyday.

Sounds just wonderful Holly. I felt the same way on Sunday.

Well-----

My other daughter (Benita) from Seattle being here (off and on)--she is going a bit stir-crazy with boredom. She is used to walking a lot and here she is kind of idle.....
The day after the wedding--when i was all pooped out--she said--"Hey! I want to go out and rake some leaves!" She needed to do something.....
Well--my back yard was covered in leaves--so i said OK!

Of course--that meant I was also going out there to make this effort team work.....as I use my Toro leaf-shredder/vacuum every year to do this. I suck up/shred all thee leaves and then empty the bag into black plastic trash bags and throw in a couple of hand-fulls of lime and water them in and then close the bags up and put them in my back yard under these old, overgrown evergreens of some kind. In a year or two--they are wondefully composted and I use them to dig into my starving beds. They all say.."Thank You!"......

SO! Benita raked all these piles of leaves and I went behind her sucking them all up. It was good that they were all really dry leaves--as it made it easier....Then she took over--and I bagged them. In about an hour and a half--we had all the leaves cleaned up and about 5-6 bags of leaves starting their "journey" to compost under the shrubs.

The next day--it was, almost, like we had not done anything......My one Maple is really late shedding it's leaves. At least one more major raking to do.....

Anyway--it was a nice Mother/Daughter activity--even though I was tired from the Wedding and would have put it off.....BUT---What is done--is done!

Gita

Gita, Your fatigue is worth the memories you will both share.

I have been talking to Ric about shredding the leaves at Josh's house and putting them under the Juniper hedge. I thought it would look nice instead of the piles of whole leaves that I usually just leave under there. We have an old shredder that hasn't been used for years. If Ric has the time we might get that out and give it a try. Although right now our main focus has turned to firewood.

Gita- wonderful wedding news. So glad it all worked out so well.

doc- a was going to plant my bill but wasn't sure which end roots...

Our leaves are coming down in stages by tree. We shredded(mulched mower) a batch to compost but if they are not too thick they'll be mulched in place on grass or mulched for mulch

Well, I disposed off all of the leaves mixed with Black Walnut. Last night my landscaper friend arrived with a truck load of leaves and now they are in gimongous piles along side of my bed. I was going to run them through my shredder/chipper, but that may be too labor intensive stooping to pick up all of those leaves. I don't own a lawn mower, so I'll look for something that maybe sucks them up and shreds them that is not very expensive. Any ideas?

Stormyla, My leaf blower also vacs and shreds. Would something like that work for you?
Thanks for the reminder I might take that along to Jen's house this afternoon and mulch some of her leaves into her flowerbeds.

This message was edited Nov 12, 2008 10:47 AM

Thanks, Holly, I'll have to look and see if mine does too. I never use it. DSO does. I prefer the upper body workout benefits of raking after my many hours of desk and phone work.

Stormy----

You can buy a Torro Blower/shredder at HD for about $40-$50. That is what i have!

Here is what I have learned about using it...............

It is not very practical to try to suck up all the leaves with it that are all over your lawn, especially if they are wet. NOOOO!!!!! DRY leaves on a Patio or walkway can be sucked up OK!

It is better to rake the leaves in piles and THEN use the vacuum/shredder. Look out for small sticks and branches. They can clog up your shredder/vacuum. Toss them as you see them while raking.....

I HATE to waste this valuable resource--so I try to compost the leaves in bags--as I stated above.....A little extra effort--but SO worth it!

Gita

Thanks, Gita, I'm heading there tonight!

What a comedy of errors!! I tried to set up my chipper/shredder to mulch by leaves. I asked DSO to get it out and have it ready for me to use. He said it was and reminded me of how to start it.

The next day I tried, but it wouldn't start. I hate those starter pull cords. The engine sounded like it wanted to turn over so, hmmmm, I thought, DSO wouldn't leave the gas empty, would he? Lo! empty tank. He bought a new fangled gas can that I couldn't figure out how to open. Finally, got it opened and promptly spilled gas everywhere, plus some in the tank. Went inside 3 times to wash the gas off of me.

I give the pull cord a big yank and the cord snaps and I'm in the bed on my butt, crushing the new aluminum edging that I just installed, covered now in mud and hitting my head on the garage wall...................................

Cleaned myself up again and went to HD to look for Gita's Toro. While there I go look for a big bag of peat moss, and I go to pick it up and it weighs about 100lbs & I wrench my back. Seems it has a big tear and the rain yesterday got into it and soaked it. Get the HD guy to open a pallet & get me another. While I'm in the store my assistant calls and says I'm supposed to be at work for a meeting. I Leave the store with Gita's toy and peat moss.

Get out in parking lot & heavens open up and I get soaked loading car. Go Home & get cleaned up again & go out to car and car won't start. Seems like I left the lights on, possibly all day as I did notice it when entering HD, but thought it was a reflection!!! Meeting has started 15 minutes ago. I get my battery jumper out of garage & try to start car, about 10 times!! No go. Call office & promise I'll get there, but they want to reschedule meeting for later in evening. OK, everybody's schedule gets shuffled. Ask assistant to order lunch as it's now 2PM. Go back & look at battery charger and turns out, it has to be turned on!!!! Car starts and I leave it running.

Have to go back in house & dry hair again. Go to work & assistant has forgotten to order lunch. Have 4 back to back meetings and then eat cold lunch at 8PM. Go home, thankful that car starts and find that DSO has discovered broken cord and has fixed it. GRRRRRRRR Make a manhattan & then to bed.

Well, it's been raining for 2 days so no leaves are mulched!!

oh stormy, I feel for you but was laughing thru that whole story. sorry!

It's OK jen, I spend a lot of time laughing at myself, a coping technique learned from mom, long ago.

Geez! Stormy! Maybe anything i suggest is a jinx?????
Sorry about your awful day!
Did you end up using the Toro?

Hope it works OK for you.......:o(

Gita

"When it rains, it pours!" Some days just seem to go like that, one thing after another... Good news is you ought to have used up a whole month's worth of bad karma, so you've got clear sailing for a while now!

That blower/shredder does sound like a good thing. If I end up with leaves to deal with, I will probably be trying to explain to the guy who mows our lawn how I want him to blow all the leaves into a long pile at the edge of my garden, and *then* drive over them repeatedly with the mower... oh, boy.

We've been pretty lucky here because of how the house is situated... most of the leaves that fall actually blow across the yard, through the line of trees, and into the field behind us. The scattered leaves that remain are easy enough to run over with the mower. How cool is that? Just watch, we'll get an unseasonable storm from the south, and the whole process will run backward this year, because I bragged on it.

No, Gita, it's still raining!

Oh Stormyla, LOL couldn't help myself. I've had a few vacations that went like your day did. At the time it was terrible but after you couldn't help but laugh at the comedy of errors. Hope today will be better.

My SIL came home Wednesday night and the three of us Ric, Me and Matt got almost all the leaves out to the curb before the rain came in. We used the old rake/blow onto a tarp and drag. I did try my leaf bagger shredder and it worked fine but we just didn't have the time. Raking and dragging was so much faster. We had a pile at the curb that was bigger than my car, should have gotten a picture. There are a lot of leaves still up in their tree so maybe later he will have time to mulch the next batch. Haven't had a chance to get down to Josh's house to rake and he is busy with sealing the roof. Leaf raking is pretty low on his to-do list.

Rained all day again today. Now my beds are completely covered again. Tomorrow will
be busy. If the leaves are not too wet, I'll try the new toro. If the gound stays damp, I may be able to vacumn the leaves out of the beds with out worrying about sucking up any soil amendments. If not, it's back to hand raking. Or I can always work on my edging. Maybe not, I've Really got to get those leaves up as I have more bulbs to plant.