Fall Cleanup- Mulching Vs Bagging. Which is better for your yard?
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- Опубліковано 14 лис 2019
- Seems like their are 2 camps- those that Mulch leaves and those that Bag. Today we look at the good and bad of both and see just HOW MANY LEAVES CAN ACTUALLY BE MULCHED.
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I have found that mulching is the most time productive and profitable way to do fall leaf cleanups. Hauling or bagging just takes to much time . I have been doing 95% of my customers this way and have never had an issue with any lawns the following spring. I make up metal homemade shute blocks for my mowers. If you mulch the leaves fine enough and spread them out they completely break down by the following spring. Thanks for the great informational videos.
That leaf litter mulch is some of the best compost when it decomposes.
Better for the environment as well.
@@TheLoiteringKid If it is too thick, its an issue for turf.
I do the same. Home made chute blocker. And end up using the back pack blower to peel off and disperse the pile
It also helps if you dont make a big pile in the first place
Even though a year later...I agree. They should just cut/mulch the leaves where ever they lay, do not make a big pile, then the amount of leaves would be evenly spread and mulched back into the ground.
If we can still see most of the turf, we mulch (not side discharge...mulch). If the turf is covered in a a several inch thick layer, we mulch IF we can disperse them out some. Once moderate leaf coverage happens, we remove the leaves and finish the season mulching again.
Leaf compost is great especially when mulched with high nitrogen clippings, but too thick of a layer going into winter presents issues.
Many comments about whats fastest, simpler, cheaper...do whats right for the turf.
The issue you had with your "mulching" is that you collected the leaves into a pile and let them get soaking wet before mulching. The better way to mulch is to mow them in where they fall. This way there is no heavy load of organic material in one place.
Exactly
Absolutely correct.
first why blow it in a pile when your going to mulch and blow it out
Bagger for leaves in the fall, mulching for the spring and summer. Definitely!
I blow away from the structure of the house shed and garage then I get on my tractor and bye bye leaves it's a good fertilizer for the grass
Needed to close off the chute. Leaves would have been mulched finer.
Needs to just burn it then wet ash the ground and re-plant in the spring... I expect extensive damage to the grass in that wallow next year from some idiot running over it 90 times.
At that volume of leaves the mower would have stalled and you'd strip the belts
I agree you need to cut off shoot but obviously you leave it open when you're going through a big wet pile and then close it once you have a manageable amount to mulch all it takes is two passes with the shoot cut off and the leaves are mulched to a fine size
I have no choice but to mulch. My wife refuses to rake.
I offer a "mulch in place" service for my regular customers, it's done during the leaf season and works well. Otherwise they get removed from the property. Great video again.
Thanks Daryl and thanks for sharing !
This is the way to go. Mulch in place and don't let it turn into a huge pile of soggy leaves. If you have a huge pile, you're better off bagging most of them up.
That goes back to the Old sayin working smarter not harder 😅 I like That
Thanks for watching Rob!
We don't blow it into an area. It gets mulched where it lays which gives the whole lawn an even coat of leaf dust. So fine, you see no brown, just grass. The worms get right at it and come Spring, nary a leaf in sight. In NC, we have worms working most all winter except for the rare bitter nights when then go deep.
On our property I do several things with my fall leaves. 1) mulch them with the mower where they fall or 2)rake some heavier laiden areas and use them for the following: add to compost pile, bury in my garden beds, add to top of huglekultur garden beds, and put in chicken run or nesting boxes. I don't worry about added thatch to my grass because on our property the grass we grow is only used for 2 things: rotational grazing our chicken flock, and as a restroom for our dogs and cat. The chickens do a darn fine job of removing absolutely every shred of thatch from my grass. Which I then use the same ways I use leaves. I don't worry about all the leaves that fall in our more wooded areas of the property even where it is grass. Since I've been rotationally grazing my chickens my "grass" has become much more of a polyculture than it was when we moved here 8 months ago. At the height of summer here in Louisiana, I was mowing a mix of rye, Millet, oats, corn, barley, sunflowers, clover etc which were all planted via the chickens and the chicken scratch they eat and the chickens love the blend of greens they grow. If I could do the same with my front yard I would but it's filled with gorgeous azaleas that I want to keep around
Thanks for sharing Cassidy!
@@Dirtmonkey absolutely! I love your videos. The info you provide has helped me see my property, plants (including grass) and our drainage from a whole new vantage point. Our property has a basement (stupid in S. Louisiana) that was created by the previous owners who built the house by building up the land using the dirt from digging out the creek. The property is ringed by a creek on three sides with a ditch in the front so drainage is super important to us. The extra elevation has allowed us to stay dry even in some seriously bad storms but out house becomes and island and we are stranded until it drains off. I've done a lot of work to improve the creek and its drainage because the previous owners were elderly and let it get over grown and filled with trash and debris. It's slowly getting better
I mulch. My barren wasteland of a yard needs all the help it can get.
We have some lawns that we blow the leaves right into the woods so we will pile them near the woodline and mulch them then blow them in. Doesnt even look like we blew leaves in when we are done.
Great info here. What we do at Dakota Turf is go over with a dedicated mulching grandstand with a mulching kit throughout the entire property just to get all the leaves down to a smaller size. Then go over it with a bagger which will pick up most of the leaves, but leaving behind a little bit for that natural fertilizer. Doing it this way also reduces the amount of trips the bagger makes to dump.
Thanks Nick and thanks for the input!
It worked the past thousands of year to just leave them as is and wait, but of course now we need to do something with them.
I like bagging because it leaves a very clean look. My mower also. Mulches leaves very well but I just like the clean look of bagging
Joseph Novotnak What is dirty about leaves?
I tow a lawn vac behind the mower. With the blades set low, I get a nice mix of leaves and grass clippings which add to the compost pile. For the flower and shrub beds, the lawn vac has a large hose attachment to suck out the leaves. The compost goes on the garden in a year or so. Occasionally, I will mulch the leaves into the lawn, but the garden has a higher priority for me. Sending the leaves off to the dump is just too wasteful for me to endure.
Let no leaf be wasted!
pete hutzel Lawns are a waste of water just for pretty, imho. Not real manly!
I use the mulching set up on the exmark with heavy oak leafs. They’re gone without a trace by may the next year. I core arate in April sometimes top dress some low Areas. Seed in compacted traffic areas.
Stanley, You help me and I will help you. When I do leaf clean ups I bag the leafs. But I start by mowing and blowing the leaves out the side. This makes the leaves smaller. Then I cover the side shut and mulch. I will mulch at least 2 times maybe more. This makes the leaves even smaller and easier to deal with. Then I raise my blades and start to bag. I then drop the blades and keep bagging. When I am done the yard is completely clean and looks great. If you are not cover in snow like everybody else try mulching with the side shut covered. Now time to do my tree felling homework and get ready to give a quote for removing 2 trees tomorrow.
Thanks for the comments Bill!
I am new to youtube land. I have watched your videos for a while but just now subscribed. You make quality videos!
We do a mixture of both. We blow the leaves in to a pile then mulch them up then bag them up with the mower. It cuts way down on the amount of material hauled away. After everything is sucked up with the bagger then hit it with the blower to stand up any grass that got pack down.
I mulch first with a mower and then go over and suck up the smaller leaves with a bagger mower. Another great video, Stan.
Thanks Don, appreciate that!
In My Situation Bagging is The Way For Me Because Disposal Fees Great Video 🤩
Thanks Glenn !
Bagger, its a whole lot faster and by looking at you move it looked like you kept throwing it back to the same area. Thats why it was still thick when you finished on the video. Bagging it also makes the property look more cleaner and the leave can be added to your compost pile.
What works best for me is running over the leaves first with my z248f mulching them blowing out the leaves side discharge. Then attach the bagger tube and bag them. I have a 6.5 box on my F150 I can get .25 to .75 Acer in my trunk. I can do 3 properties by myself in a day in good weather. You don't want to mulch and leave that on the grass. You end up over the years rasing your lawn and it is no longer flush with your sidewalks and driveways and creates problems in the future. Hunter's Lawns
One thing most people dont take into consideration when mulching, especially when mulching alot of leaves is the acidity in the leaves can actually change the PH level of the soil and can damage turf because its no longer the right PH level for the type of grass. just something to think about..
Brown leaves will have no appreciable acid in them. Adding leaf mulch to your lawn is similar to adding compost to your lawn. I’ve been doing this for years. I bring bags of leaves to my lawn and mulch them until they disappear. Lots of studies on this.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm a homeowner, not an operator. I end up with so many leaves that if I didn't do multiple clean ups, I would have over a foot of leaves. I always use the mulching kit on my deck, and the first half of my runs I pull a lawn sweeper behind the mower (while cutting). I use those mulched leaves in large beds on the back of the property. After I get an idea that I won't have too much leaf debris, I simply mulch the rest of the leaves into the lawn. Around January on my last clean up, I will blow all my beds and any loose leaves into the yard and mulch to the point that I don't have any exposed leaf material left.
Thanks for sharing Paul!
We do three acres on are property . Blow the leaves away from trees and structures etc . We switched over too the Oregon G6 gator blades couple years ago . Mulches everything fast and fine . Best results are no wind days and leaves are bit damp . Grass comes up beautiful in spring . Pine cones sticks all get disintegrated also. 👍 Dont try too do them all at once meaning start early and mulch couple times as leaves are coming down
Thanks for sharing and for watching!
Very helpful showing all these ways and why. Thank you Stan
No problem Larry, thanks for viewing!
I'm a mulcher and I go and pick up all my neighbors leaves and grass clippings that they bag up. Makes excellent compost with other free amendments. I love baggers!
We compost the leaves with grass cuttings and restaurant food here in London.By spring we have soil for sale by the bag.
I mulch 100% of my customers. I run a 52” Grandstand. However, Toro makes a full mulch kit for the deck. It doesn’t just cover the chute. It comes with three baffles that contain each blade. Material isn’t moved through the deck. I also put an extra blade on each spindle and configure them in a X position. I only have to go over the lawn twice, maybe a third time and every leaf is gone. I can send a video if you are interested.
I have that same set up on my toro.
I would love to see a video
Mulch everything here. After mulching I take the blower and 'incorporate' the remaining fines down into the grass blades for a cleaner look. Stan...After you finished that big pile, that bad ass blower would have spread them fines out and made everything disappear in short order.
In the spring time on spring cleanup I run a cheap 36" tine rake behind the standon to fluff the dead grass blades up and pull up any debris then once over with the mower gives a ready for new growth clean look. (I'm amazed at how well things mulch in the spring ....dead and dry = poof)
Note I cut at 4" and it stays like that all year. Spring cleanup I drop the deck to 2" to mulch everything remaining up and give a clean start to new growth for the season
I prefer mulching as 2-3 acres of grass is a bit much to try bag and cart and dump in areas for making compost. With a tractor and slasher it would mean raking it all up and way too much work, 2 days ago I bought a zero turn mower and waiting for the mulching kit so can see how it goes at mulching all the grass up. Love most of your videos Stan as they are quite educational.
Glad you like the vids, thanks Craig !
I build a wire fence about 3-4 feet high around my treehouse and fill the space with leaves. Over winter the leaves start to decompose with internal temp raising approx 20 degrees which transfers into the greenhouse raising the inside temp. 3 jobs in 1,disposal of leaves,creating compost AND heating the greenhouse. Not enough to grow tomatoes over Christmas but it saves a lot of cold intolerant plants. Plus my neighbours are happy to donate unwanted leaves. Job done. Baz in U/K
I'm mulching but bagging at the same time so I can be a little more precise about what I want to use it for. I'll use the majority of it in my compost pile, but we also have a couple of fig trees that need some winterizing so I'll use that around the base to help them out for the season. Might actually try incorporating some of it in the garden as well to break down hopefully by the spring.
60,000 bobcats and no 10k worth for a leaf vacuum setup lol
With my Cub cadet Z forse sx. I would go over the leaves 3 times all gone.
I'll use my backpack blower to get roughly 90% of the leaves off the yard in November, just did it last weekend here in New England. Depending on the weather for that year I;ll mulch it into the grass once they are all off the trees, normally doesn't happen until spring.
Hey Stanley, Steve here from Middle Tn, ive been watching and learning from you for a couple of years now...thanks. I used to mulch simply because i didnt have the equipment to bag. Thos year i have a bagging system, dump trailer, and im about to purchase the debris loader. We will see after this year but im thinking i might stay a little cleaner bagging.
What is your bagging system? I have a large dump trailer but currently tarp the leaves and dump into the trailer but am thinking about giving mulching a shot. Also thinking of mulching smaller yards and tarping the large/thick yards until I can afford a leaf vac
Mulch over it first then bag second
Every job is different, but for the most part we blow out the shrubs, two guys on backpacks one guy on hurricane. Then windrow. Then push them in a container truck with a tc45d. Then bag the lawn and finally blow the lawn, walks and driveway with the hurricane. Works great I think it saves the mower in the long run.
I literally just mowed my leaves then come in and this is on my feed
Here in the Pacific Northwest, with a lot of Big Leaf Maple that are heavy and wet from rain, mulching is a real pain. The mulch just sticks to the equipment like glue. I have to collect the leaves and move them off the grass. At the end of the season, the few leaves that are left do get mulched/mowed into the ground.
We use a combination of both this year we’ve been able just to keep up with them as they fall off the trees and mulch them as we mow the lawn if it’s a property with lots of trees or they all fall all at once like they did last year than we suck them up as there is to many to mulch into the lawn. But before I owned a leaf vac. I was only mulching them
Thanks for the input Nick!
I mulch all my leaves on several different weeks to get it all very small. I'm only one man and don't think it's realistic to try to bag up my entire property. Haven't seen too many issues it's pretty much all gone by spring. I try to shoot alot of it off banks and into my wooded areas and that helps alot.
Love the walker, the deck vents let just enough back in, and the hopper doesn’t fill instantly. If you want everything you just hit it a second time
Great video !!
Thank you B-rad!
My big 2001 simplicity legacy garden tractor has a 60" shaft driven deck. That beast will pulverize large volumes of leaves into very tiny particles.
Love my Cyclone reduces by 1/3 and helps breakdown go faster.
My old Honda push mower works really good for mulching leaves with it's duel blades. I sometimes bag if the leaves are really bad.
I mulch mostly so I’ve been plant the aeration service for next spring. Will that help as much as I think it will for those lawns I have mulched heavy leaf piles into?
I mulch then bag. Saves so much time & space.
Thanks for watching Greg!
I mulch and bag twice the work sometime but leave some mulch behind and uses less bags aka taking up less space
I am all for mulching, but no way I would ever leave a lawn looking like that. That would for sure smother the grass. All you would of had to do was first blow that pile into a 20 by 30 area and then mulch them up and I bet it would of looked good. The key is to have the grass a little longer when mulching so the leaves have a place to fall. Also, as long as the grass is showing when done, the grass will be fine in the spring.
I mulch most of the leaves on my yard. I try and go over it every 4-5 days as the trees are losing them so it doesn't build up to much, usually mulch it pretty fine to the point you can't really see it, and then I may aerate the ground to try and give the ground a bit more air to breathe and compost down.
Thanks for sharing Russel!
We multch and use a z3 and leaf pushes on our mowers. However we are looking into a bagger to see if certain jobs are more efficient/client specific
on personal property I mulch every 2-6 days during leaf season commercially I would grind um fine and cart um to a mulch pile (free high-quality top soil)
Thanks for the input and for watching !
You need a mulching kit for that mower. It will cut the number of trips over the leaves by a lot and you will end up with nearly powdered leaves.
We spread them out over the mowable yard and start mulching. I wish we had one of those big blowers, but we don't do enough to justify the cost.
nice video. i was expected a le5f blower side turret attachment to spread out the mulch.
Try this. Charge the customer to pick up the leaves and dispose of them (On your property in large piles). Then in the summer, you sell it back to them as an organic fertilizer or topsoil. Win-Win for you. The customer pays to buy back their own product. I do that with parking lots. in the spring when they get swept of all the small gravel. We then sell it back to them to fill in the potholes.
I read an article from a university that said if you mulch leaves it works as a pre-emergent. There study said it takes three seasons. I’m on season two. I live on a wooded lot so it’s a pain to use the yard vac. Took me 40 hours of vacuuming last time I did it. I mulch thin layers as they come down now.
Also depends entirely on the terrain and grass that you have. Bermuda doesn't care about thatch, in fact it wants some thatch. It's also dormant in the winter and dense so the leaf bits get lots of help staying up where microbes can much on them. Fescue however stays green but none growing and you don't want to starve it of light and or hold too much moisture to the crown. A little mulch thatch will help it weather winter better but to much can lead to issues in the spring.
We have a handheld leaf vac for the patio and areas close to the house. Those go in a compost pile. The rest get mowed or blow out of the yard.
If I ever wanted have cool boss you deff be the one.
Thank you Peggy!
High, I cut them way down then bag them. The purpose is to save space. We have one truck to carry equipment and one for waste. Mulching them saves lots of room infact we can run the whole day without dumping. I would rather spend my cash on manpower than a leaf sucker. We just get more done, and save time, and the yards are clean.
Nice! I like it 👍
If you do mulch the leaves remember that they are naturally acidic, it's a good idea to do routine soil testing to confirm if you need to do a lime application to keep the ph in balance. I'm going to get a billygoat leaf loader this year and mount it to my 16ft trailer, I had one back in 2011 and like a moron I sold it. You can mulch your leaves but there is a limit of how much material you can mulch before it becomes too much. I have all of our mowers equipped with a dedicated mulch kit which I keep on year-round, what I do is blow off the majority of the leaves and tarp them to the trailer, then I mow the property after the turf is cleaned off.
Bagger too many leaves to mulch and it takes too long to mulch :) great video Stan
I am a muching preferred guy, but would bag and haul if that was preferred by customers. Mulching helps returned nutrients to the soil. A dethaching and aeration required in the spring. Some times depending on amount of trees I would suggest a compost pile on site and would offer a on site tilling of the compost pile. Mulching is best done by just clearing flower beds then mulching in place. I recommend not making piles.
I say put it back in the ground and let do it's thing.
I just run my riding mower in a loop around the house, directing the output away from my house until I reach the edge of the woods (house is basically surrounded by woods). Then run a dethatcher/sweeper in the spring to clean up any mess before the grass re-emerges.
Patrick McClintick Yes. Much less commotion and as effective.
Great video
Thank you Logan!
Did the same to blackberry bushes, dug them out, pushed them into a pile then ran it over like 8 times with a rider. Pulverized them good.
I collect, mulch, then bag and spread them on top of my garden.
I have so many properties with many 50+ year old trees that mulching isn’t even an option. The only way these properties are getting cleaned up is getting them to the curb and hauling them off. I have several properties that fill my 10 yard dump on one visit in one cleanup. I tried mulching them and there were was just too much leaf debris left after mulching.
Thanks for sharing Edward!
Windrow the leaves to dry them, then mulch em in linear passes using offset paths so you're not rutting.
Or compost them with roadkill, woodchip, kitchen scrap and sticks.
It all depends on what the customer wants or site conditions. Mostly we mulch and it does not look like what Stan did. We blow the beds out, then mow; we use mulching blades "gator blades" and set up the deck accordingly. Only bag and haul off if need.
I mulch the grass all season, then bag the leaves using a mulching blade and put them on top of flower and vegetable gardens. All is composted by spring time.
"Well some of you do because your pigs" this is gold lol 😆
I say for my lawn I definitely always bag them up with the mower rarely I mulch like never because I get so many leaves I just blow and pick them up after but my lawn is always clear except for my added up piles.
By spring all that leaf thatch will be gone. 30 years experience
blow leaves away from house and out of the beds in to open lawn. Attach baggers to mowers. Begin mowing, let baggers fill up. This will act as a chute blocker. Mow entire area to mulch up leaves. Once leaves are mulched, go over lawn again and empty leaf bagger each time it is full. You can get a lot more mulched leaves in your truck and the second time over the lawn provides a clean finished look to the lawn.
Bagger for sure!
Nice reference to trucking Stan.
I have a “Grass Flap” on my mower and I kick it down to mulch multiple passes; first couple with the deck high and then at mow height. Then I kick it up to blow them even and if there are still large amounts I pass over quickly with my side catcher and normally can pick up with one basket. I figure I’m leaving nutrients without choking the grass.
What I do is get as much leafs off the the yard and then I’ll go back over and mulch the rest to make a good fertilizer for the grass in the spring time
Do you get more suction by mulching or rear discharge/side discharge?
I actually do both i mulch them up to about 1/4 sixe from start then bagg to make it look good leaves site naturally fertilized and cleanlooking
Smart chute and gator blades , then back over the leaves
I swallow my M&M’s and chew my medication pills.
Lol farva
Doctors hate him
We take a hybrid approach. We have too many leaves too just mulch. We mulch fine then bag (to a different compost pile) the extra.
lets see some more heavy equipment videos! keep it up!
More to come, thanks !
My local dealer is a Scag and Exmark Dealer, would you take the Staris over the Vride 2?
Go over it once mulching it, throw the bag on and go over it again. This way it looks clean but there’s some leaf mulch left behind to help the soil.
I believe mulched leaves do not make thatch. They fully decompose quickly.
depends on the size. I've seen some big old leaves with big stems that most certainly dont break down quickly.
Mulched leaves should help get rid of thatch. By bringing micro organisms to the surface.
Gator blades plus chute blocker chops them nice and fine!!!
Stan u need a mulch deck to mulch the leaves and preferably at a customer's house. But you need to tend to it weekly as well and you can make a. If pile of leaves dissapear by mulching it. You have the right idea but not necessarily how I'd go about it. You need a decent stand of grass to put those chopped up leaves into. I used to do it when I ran the mowing under some really big Oak trees. Every week though. Maintain it as you would a commercial job. And get a mulch deck. Get a mulch deck. Please get a mulch deck😂
Stan why aren't you using the pb8010's? surely better than using the 580 and 770? cool video