What do you do with your leaves when they fall ?

[gmckee1985]

Currently going through this process. The leaves are still falling off but they were just piling up way too high so I had to take matters into my own hands. Almost forgot how annoying this process can be. Winter will be here before we know it. I'm going to enjoy these last few weeks of fall. The leave raking, not so much.

 

[kevinkimers]

We would rake the leaves up and my mom would put some potatoes wrapped in tinfoil in as it slowly burned. The potatoes tasted amazing! My mom said, never put these around the trees (our yard was saturated with Georgia Oak and Pine) it would kill them because of the bugs they attract.

 

[headfullofbees]

I spread some on my allotment and compost the rest.

Worms love leaves, because they contain a lot of cellulose, and I love worms because their castings are the best form of compost.
Sometimes I watch as a leaf gets slowly dragged under the surface, and my compost bins are alive with red wrigglers, so they are like a cross between wormeries and compost heaps.

 

[David Cerboni]

I barely get rain where I live, so I just rake the leaves and put them over the soil where my plants are. This makes very good compost for the soil. Instead of throwing them away you minus well make use of them.

 

[Twinsmommy31]

I am definitely going to utilize the leaves in my back yard. There are 3 years of fallen leaves in my yard and now I know what I can do with them. I can use them for compost and this should help me with my garden as a fertilizer. This is an excellent idea.

 

[MrsJones]

I liked the Ted Talk video. I rake my leaves front and back. This was the first year that I decided to have the leaves picked up by the city waste collection. I won't do it again because they didn't pick up as scheduled and I had to call about it. Before this I usually rake all my leaves where I housed my dogs. And they would disintegrate by the following spring.

 

[Mika]

I've always raked them up and thrown them into the compost pile. After winter once the snow melts I work it into the garden or throw it on the yard. I'd prefer to leave them on the yard to decompose. Unfortunately, family often visits and it's unacceptable to have leaves on the yard!

 

[globulon]

Here we are supposed to collect up the leaves and put them in a specially marked organics bin for the garbage workers to take away. I understand that a leaf-filled lawn is sometimes an eyesore, but I would have preferred to let them be. I do wonder what municipalities do with the collected leaves though. Perhaps they burn them as biofuels or use them in composting?

 

[Cereus]

Mow them and compost. I'm lazy and don't like raking leaves. It's easier to just shred them up while cutting grass and empty out the bag. Less work, more compost- win win.

 

[Shimus]

It really just depends on what you plan to do with your lawn after the snows (if you live in such an area). I know if I lived where the leaves fell sometimes but I didn't get any snow - I'd rake or get rid of them into piles and decompose them for some nice garden mulch with other ingredients.

However, if snows fall, and in the increments we get (Feet at a time) I'd leave the leaves over the lawn where they fell the frost and snow and ice and everything else doesn't damage the green. The leaves are the grass's natural way of living through such harsh conditions. People with bad lawns the next year generally rake and let snow hit their lawn all winter.

Just saying.

 

[ChanellG]

I have started composting them as well in a homemade leaf bin to get leaf mold. I have put them in the regular compost before, but only after they have dried, and only as a starter layer. After reading @zigs' comment above, I probably won't be doing that again.

 

[kevinkimers]

I love leaves all over the ground. I think it looks so beautiful. I would rather see a lawn covered in leaves then dieing grass or dirt. Not to mention, it is so much fun to run through them and hearing the crunching sound as you go. Yep, I'm a kid at heart.

 

[Shimus]

I love leaves all over the ground. I think it looks so beautiful. I would rather see a lawn covered in leaves then dieing grass or dirt. Not to mention, it is so much fun to run through them and hearing the crunching sound as you go. Yep, I'm a kid at heart.

I thought I was the only one who really crunched through leaves like that, who was an Adult... nice to see I'm not.

I also like the look of the thousands of colors the leaves add to the normal green.

 

[galmal]

We're lucky to have a mulching riding mower with a bag system. So they get mulched and bagged and then we spread them out in the woods behind our house. The mower doesn't suck up all the leaf mulch, so a little of it stays behind on the lawn, which I've been told is good for the grass.

The mower makes quick and easy work of dealing with leaves. I remember as a kid having to rake the leaves three or four times every fall. The only good part was we had this huge ditch and we would pile all the leaves into it, then run and jump into them. That was a lot of fun.

 

[kevinkimers]

I thought I was the only one who really crunched through leaves like that, who was an Adult... nice to see I'm not.

I also like the look of the thousands of colors the leaves add to the normal green.

There is a tree (forget what it is called) that has a deep purplish leaf and when it drops to the ground it makes an awesome purplish carpet. LOL