Mulch your leaves into your lawn for quick and easy fall cleanup

Here's a picture of your typical surburban home in the fall with about a couple dozen bags of leaves waiting for curbside pickup. It's great that we are keeping yard waste out of the landfills but what's the overall benefit? Are we taking into account all the energy used to run a fleet of garbage/yard waste trucks to pick up and haul away all this fall debris? How about the energy to make the refuse bags? How about your energy to pick up these leaves? Not to mention energy used by blower vacs, lawnmowers and whatever other machinery you use to collect fall debris.

Mulch your leaves into your lawn for quick and easy fall cleanup

I've done a bit of research and found many studies advocating mulching the leaves and leaving the remains on your lawn. The trick is not to overdo it as too many mulched leaves will smother the grass. Some claim not to mulch oak leaves because of acidity but this appears to be untrue. The only caveat that I follow is to not mulch black walnut leaves. If you don't have a mulching mower, no problem, just mow over the leaves a few times with your regular mower until the leaves have been shredded to about the size of a dime. Or consider clogging up the side discharge by running over more leaves than your mower can handle.

What are the benefits of mulching leaves into your lawn?

1. Saves your back from the constant bending over as a result of raking and gathering leaves;
2. The energy saved above;
3. Mulched leaves eventually become additional top soil;
4. Mulched leaves increase the amount of water and nutrients your soil can hold;
5. When not overdone, mulched leaves will make your grass greener next spring.

Some sites advocate adding nitrogen based fertilizer to aid in the decomposition of the mulched leaves. I can buy into this advice and will try it myself and report the results. If you have too many leaves to mulch into your lawn then consider putting the excess in your compost pile; however, either mulch them before putting them into your compost pile or alternate thin layers of leaves with layers of other materials to prevent the leaves from smothering the pile.

Another use would be to add the mulched leaves to your flower beds. I'm taking about two dozen bags of leaves from friends and will be mulching them up for just that use. I may even stockpile a few dozen bags for next spring.

Toro Ultra 12 Amp Electric Blower/Vacuum

Years ago, I was given a Sears Craftsman gasoline powered blower/vac. I can't argue with a gift, can I? I used it quite a bit when I first got it. But for some reason, I've let it sit in the shed for the last several years and opted for the rake instead.

In fact, my system used to be that I would rake my leaves onto a tarp, haul them back to a hidden corner of a yard, and pile them up there. This worked fine but it took most of the next summer for the leaves to rot. Now, I just try to mulch up as many of the leaves as I can with my lawnmower, but I still have to rake the flowerbeds and the mulched leaves still end up all over the driveway. So some manual labor with the rake is still involved.

This year, I got the itch to fire up the ol' blower/vac. I wish I hadn't. It sure seemed easy (at least in my imagination) to just magically suck those leaves up this year. The blower/vac reminded me of why I had let it sit in the shed for all those years.

1 - The Craftsman blower/vac is a pain in the arse to start. Granted it was pretty cold yesterday and it had been years since I'd used it. I did take the precaution to store it with a bone dry gas tank as recommended by the owner's manual. Admittedly, I did not remove the spark plug and pour oil down the opening. Nor did I clean the air filter prior to storage. But I had only used it maybe a few times over two fall seasons. Nevertheless, cold starts are hell and warm starts are not much better. Basically, you need to full choke it whether it is cold or warm.

Toro Ultra 12 Amp Electric Blower/Vacuum

2 - The collection tube is just a few inches too short so that you are always slightly hunching over all day. This just kills your lower back. I can only guess what a pain this thing must be to taller guys.

3 - The blower/vac doesn't burn the fuel/oil mixture cleanly so you are left smelling like that mixture after you are finished. (Maybe this is why I had trouble starting it (too rich) but I did use a 40:1 mixture as required.)

4 - I could never get the bag to line up easily with the plastic elbow. As your collection bag gets full, you have to make sure that the leaves have a straight shot into the bag. Otherwise, the bag will collapse on the feed tube and the unit will lose suction power. I finally just let the bag drag along the ground as this allowed for the straight shot into the bag from the tube.

5 - You have to wear earplugs. This thing is loud as all get out.

6 - Sucking up dry leaves is the easiest but wet leaves can cause some problems. If you get a big clump of wet leaves, they will choke this thing dead. And as I indicated above, it ain't easy to start even when it is warm. Remember, put the choke on full even when it is warm. This thing will mulch up the leaves but some leaves seem mulch resistant. My magnolia's leaves really didn't mulch up well which resulted in numerous premature full bags of leaves.

If I had paid for this blower/vac, I would find it much harder to go shopping for a new one. But, as they say, easy come easy go, this won't break my heart, don't ya know.

Toro Ultra 12 Amp Electric Blower/Vacuum

I've had it with gas powered blower/vacs. I'm goin' 'lectric! I'm ordering the new Toro Ultra 12 Amp Electric Blower/Vacuum and hopefully never looking back. I'll let you know how it performs soon enough. Anyone want my old Craftsman?!

01/21/08 follow up - Thanks for the link Elayne and I'll try to remind you next fall to get a tarp and rake your leaves onto it. That still may be the best leaf gathering system that I've come up with. Actually, my mom may have come up with that one.

I tested out my new Toro Ultra 12 Amp Electric Blower/Vacuum today. The findings follow.

the pros

1 - extremely lightweight and very easy on your back, arms and hands
2 - the leaf blower works great - especially good for cleaning off driveways, sidewalks and patios in no time
3 - a very quick and easy change to a vacuum (less than a minute)
4 - vacuum works well. Mine stopped working well until I realized that the tube was clogged with leaves, sticks and debris.
5 - Loud motor noise but not deafening.
6 - Probably does live up to its 15:1 leaf reduction ratio and thus you go a long time between bag emptying.
7 - a bargain at $69
8 - a decent ergonomic design

the cons

1 - the vacuum is not too good with wet leaves
2 - a bit cumbersome when using vacuum because of extension cord and leaf bad
3 - rake is still handy to pile leaves and then bring in the Toro to vacuum them up