"Rake" Leaves - Not Me

There are many ways of dealing with leaves. Most are not on my "FUN" list. Yes, I do own a leaf rake, but I prefer to let it hang on a nail in the shed. Many of my neighbors have leaf blowers. Those seemed like a good idea at first but, judging from the noise every weekend, they require nearly continuous operation. Raked or blown leaves simply will not stay put. The wind continues to blow them every which way. I have better things to do with my time than chase the same leaves around the yard for 16 hours or so every weekend.

There are ways to minimize the amount of actual work. This is a war folks! Plan your attack as if the yard is a battlefield. Those leaves are the insurgents. The goal is to get the leaves off the grass with minimum effort, in minimum time, and just ONE time if possible. Leaves are good insulation and fertilizer so bagging and hauling them away is a complete waste of energy and natural resources. Most yards have low spots that could stand to be filled-in. Those are natural compost spots. If you have leaves, you must also have at least one tree. Trees are a minor pain to cut around and grass often does not grow well under the trees anyway.

My lawn mower is by far the best weapon for this battle. It is set up as a mulching mower for most of the spring and summer months. My grass clippings disappear back into the lawn to make more soil and nutrients.

In the fall, I change my mower deck to side discharge, then carefully plan my attack. The mission is to move the enemy the minumum distance necessary to clear the yard, chopping and piling the insurgents around trees and into flower beds. The chopped insurgents stay where I put them much better than leaving them whole, only to return on the next breeze.

The ground up stuff looks better than most mulch to me. It's FREE, and does a better job of insulating flower bulbs and roots from winter frost.

All of my trees end up with a "ring" of mulch that naturally fills in with things like violets, buttercups, and ivy. The random assortment around each tree suits me just fine and is almost completely maintenance-free. Yes, sometimes the wild growth does turn out to be poison-ivy.

If I could figure out how to turn poison ivy into a cash crop, I'd be a rich man. The stuff grows extremely well around here in every form. We have individual plants, ground cover, and climbing vines. Fortunately, I'm not grossly allergic to the stuff, it tends to stay in the original spot where I came into contact with it and runs it's itchy course. I shoot it with Round-Up and hope for something better to come up next time.