Leaves: rake, mulch, let lie?

[Fly320s]

We are well into autumn up here in NH, and my yard is thoroughly leaved.  I have never been one to rake leaves, and certainly not bag 'em, but I do try to mulch them with the mower.  But with all the trees I have around my house I think I may run out of grass to mow before I run out of leaves to mulch.

What do you do?

[erik the bold]

Don't know what size yard you have, but mine's quite large, all landscaped.  I use my riding mower with mulching deck and tow a sweeper at the same time.  Picks up the scrap, and is already good to go in the garden.  For a small yard, I'd just mulch 'em up. Makes great fertilizer for the grass.....

[charby]

I usually mulch mine with the mower until the major leaf drop occurs. Then I rake them up and take them to the city free leaf drop off, then they get turned into compost.

I have also in the past had a farmer that let me dump the leaves in a harvested field.

I used to burn my leaves in my garden and till the ash in; but the last two places I have lived they had burnign ordinances for leaves and brush.

-C

[Larry Ashcraft]

Our yard is full of giant trees, and there are literally truckloads of leaves this time of year.  I mix them in with the compost.  Leaves, by themselves, don't make good compost, but they add a lot of trace minerals from deep in the ground.

I've also tilled them directly into the garden.  Burning is OK here, but our soil is alkyline, and ash just makes it worse.

[Lee]

Mow the first few weeks; bag the next few weeks (50 bags or so); blow the late droppers into the woods.
I used to ignore them to, until my grass started dying, and then the trees out back started dying.  Even trees won't stand up to 2-3 feet of leaves piled around them.  Raking leaves is about the only thing I don't like about Fall.

[Declaration Day]

I own a lawnservice company, and we mulch 99% of the leaves.  

We have a few customers who have too many leaves to recycle back into the lawn.  
In that case, we chop them down to fine pieces and blow them into a pile, then bag them.

[Art Eatman]

Over some years, grass cuttings and leaves that are left on a lawn will raise the elevation of the lawn.  This can affect the drainage after any heavy rain.  Just something to consider if your yard is sorta flat and the lawn is even with any garage slab.  Going-away water is better than coming-in water.

Art

[roo_ster]

Mulch 'em.  Rakes are for reaching under shrubs to grab leaves...to mulch.

If you have heavy leafage, don't let it get over yon a...keep mowing that yard weekly.

[Perd Hapley]

Where's the Tejon to tell us the correct, Northern, method of dealing with leaves?

[Mabs2]

Leave the leaves and hope they kill the grass.

[Mannlicher]

I have two 70+ tall Cottonwoods, and a number of oaks in the back yard.  When the leaves fall, I uses a gas blower to round them up, and then I bag them.

[ilbob]

If you leave them on the lawn it will negatively impact your lawn.

If the negative impact to your lawn bothers you, the answer is to pick them up. Either with your mower, a blower, or a sweeper.

Mulched leaves don't do much for your lawn, and as another poster mentioned the sheer volume of them can change the water shed around your house.

I used to burn them. Now I am restricted to burning at times it is inconvenient for me to do so. The village has a giant vacuum that comes by and sucks them up if I move them out by the street, or I can pay 50 cents each for giant paper bags to put them in for the trash collector to pick up.

[cfabe]

Around here we rake or blow them from the yard and deposit them on the tree lawn. Then the city comes by a couple times in the fall and sucks them up with a huge vacuum truck for you. Depending on the city/town you may or may not be allowed to disopse of them in the trash pickup, without or without special bags.

[brimic]

Rake.

It may seem counterintuitive, but you don't want to allow too much organic material to accumulate in your lawn or you'll be dealing with a dumptruck full of thatch removed from your lawn in a year or two because your grass is getting choked out.

[Mabs2]

If you leave them on the lawn it will negatively impact your lawn.

It may seem counterintuitive, but you don't want to allow too much organic material to accumulate in your lawn or you'll be dealing with a dumptruck full of thatch removed from your lawn in a year or two because your grass is getting choked out.

Exactly!  The deader the better until I can afford to pave over it all.