Who has the best way to deal with leaves in the fall ?

[koja]

I have a friend who bales them- I help him every fall. He has a LOT of trees- probably 40+ big oaks around his yard- so baling them is the best solution for him. He uses the bales for his garden, and gives some of them away. He uses a hay baler, and we rake the leaves into the chute (it doesn't pick them up like it does grass).
Those bales weight 120+ pounds a piece, and have a LOT of leaves packed in them. I would guess that an 8 foot pickup bed couldn't hold all of the loose leaves that would go into a bale, and he gets 75-80 bales, every year.
It isn't for everyone, but it works well for him. It takes about 6 hours to blow the leaves into wind rows, bale them, then load them on a trailer.

Hmm , interesting idea .

 

[ShaunRH]

I have heard you can pile them all up, cover them up with dirt and burn them like you're making charcoal. Then you rototill the dirt and left over coals, add some nutrients your particular soil needs and it's awesome fertilizer.

Never had enough to do it with to try it but I want to!

 

[Eldubya]

Certainly not the 'easiest', but I blow them into one area, then mulch and bag them with the walk-behind mower. Combine that with a 50/50 mix of seaweed off of the beach in front of our place. Run it all through the chipper/shredder and I've got one of the best, nutrient rich soil additives going.
Bit of work, but well worth it for the garden.

 

[OklahomaBill]

I let mother nature deal with em... She has a bit more experience. Somes times I help her along by tossing them in my horse manure compost pile

 

[alansz400]

Here is my set up for this year. Works great. Even picks up those nasty chestnuts.

 

[84cj]

Prior to the kubota, I had a riding mower with a bagged. Ride around and suck them up. Dump them in a pile in the woods. That finally died, rod thru the block (it had a hard life). Now with the Bx, I have a rake. I'll blow them into a pile with the Bx, spen military type trailer on back. Rake them up, put them in the trailer and dump.

 

[D2Cat]

I've got one of these. I'm modifying it to use the 3PT the PTO for power. No engine to maintain. Only maintenance parts are the rubber fingers. Original cost was in the $20,000 dollar range, but have not been manufactured for about 20 years. They were made about 25 miles from where I live and there are a few of them around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXgqzON0nj8

 

[coachgeo]

Don't vacuume or rake them........ mulch them


http://www.scotts.com/smg/goART2/InfoHowTo/mulching-leaves/11800002///

 

[Daren Todd]

I've got one of these. I'm modifying it to use the 3PT the PTO for power. No engine to maintain. Only maintenance parts are the rubber fingers. Original cost was in the $20,000 dollar range, but have not been manufactured for about 20 years. They were made about 25 miles from where I live and there are a few of them around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXgqzON0nj8

That thing looks like a zamboni for your yard

 

[Tooljunkie]

D2Cat has what i have been dreaming of. Perfect for harvesting crop residue. Then i pelletize it. Soybeans burn the best so far.

Awesome machine. I like those unique ones.

 

[Eric McCarthy]

The effiecent way to mulch is to block off the discharge shute with some sorta sheet metal. Depending on the size an old license plate can be use or any kind of sheet metal you can bend by hand.

Blocking off the discharge shute the leaves get chopped up a few more times by the blades and diced to a pulp.

 

[Donystoy]

I built this vacuum a few years ago that attached to the mower deck (not in picture). I sold it some time ago when I purchased a riding lawn mower with a smaller vacuum setup. The homemade one worked great but took up a lot of storage area even though it collapsed to 22" wide.
We use to take a weeks holiday every fall just to clean up the leaves. We have 3/4 of an acre which would have leaves as thick as 6" in some areas. Blowing them away was no option as we have hedges and fences in the way. The smaller unit works fine now since we have lost a lot of the trees.
I also bought a small hand blower/vacuum that works great in awkward areas such as flower beds.

 

[zbhover]

I have to vote for some gator blades and a mulch door for a MMM.

It works great with my B2620, see my new post at: http://www.orangetractortalks.com/forums/showthread.php?p=115113#post115113

 

[Kfuzzy]

Here's how i do it in leaf country. Ferris with a TracVac. Grass and leaves shredded in to a fine mulch. Use my new B2650 to turn the mulch pile over.

 

[OBKubota]

I got the grass catcher for my GR2120 and it works great,no more raking and bending to pick up the enormous amount of leaves On my property,hopefully you can see video link below. That's only at half throttle because I am still on 50 hr breaki in.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=16F9C9EA33CF0782!894&authkey=!AFJUs2zROb2Ey_w&ithint=video%2cmov