It may not have occurred to you, but there are two different modes to shredding or bagging your leaves with a lawn mower. If you want your leaves finely shredded, use your lawn mower in "mulch" mode - that is, don't put the bagger on your lawn mower. Once you've run over the leaves in mulch mode, but your bagger on and collect the shredded leaves. You will be astounded by the reduced amount of leaf mass that you collect: I'd estimate it's about 1/4 of the size (by volume, but not by weight) of the method you use. A caveat: it's not a good idea to do this when your lawn and leaves are wet, as you will not be able to collect a lot of the mulched particularates.
Not a dumb question at all! Maybe I wasn't clear in the video but it's almost winter here, so there are no plants growing in my garden. The leaves are to insulate the soil and protect the soil organisms. In the spring, I will remove most of the leaves. Thanks for your thoughts.
@@rc5411 yea now that you mention it, I am not sure if I said in the video that I would remove the leaves. But you are right, the plants would be suffocated if I left the leaves
@@rc5411 By spring, there's not much left.. If there are leaves left I put them aside in a pile, put plant in garden, and the use the leaves as mulch around new plants, they're gone by mid spring. I had my soil tested last summer, and it was high in organic material, likely due to incorporation of leaves into soil.
It may not have occurred to you, but there are two different modes to shredding or bagging your leaves with a lawn mower. If you want your leaves finely shredded, use your lawn mower in "mulch" mode - that is, don't put the bagger on your lawn mower. Once you've run over the leaves in mulch mode, but your bagger on and collect the shredded leaves.
You will be astounded by the reduced amount of leaf mass that you collect: I'd estimate it's about 1/4 of the size (by volume, but not by weight) of the method you use.
A caveat: it's not a good idea to do this when your lawn and leaves are wet, as you will not be able to collect a lot of the mulched particularates.
Ok thank you for the advice! I will have to try it
This is maybe a dumb question.......will your plants grown thru the leaves? I've seen piles of leaves kill grass so why wouldn't it kill the plants?
Not a dumb question at all! Maybe I wasn't clear in the video but it's almost winter here, so there are no plants growing in my garden. The leaves are to insulate the soil and protect the soil organisms. In the spring, I will remove most of the leaves. Thanks for your thoughts.
@@therealgardener Yes I'm in cold weather climate also.......I missed it when you said you would remove the leaves is the spring.
@@rc5411 yea now that you mention it, I am not sure if I said in the video that I would remove the leaves. But you are right, the plants would be suffocated if I left the leaves
@@rc5411 By spring, there's not much left.. If there are leaves left I put them aside in a pile, put plant in garden, and the use the leaves as mulch around new plants, they're gone by mid spring. I had my soil tested last summer, and it was high in organic material, likely due to incorporation of leaves into soil.