I agree 100% w/ Sylvia. If you haven't done it yet, just go for it. It gets easier w/ practice. I used to be shy about yard waste shopping, but I'm not anymore. In fact, the bolder and more open about it you are, the more stuff you get! If I'm snagging bags of leaves, people will ask if I want grass, too or vice versa. Or, sometimes they offer me flower pots. I try to set up something with them such as a special place they promise to put the yard waste so I don't have to wade thru bags of trash. Yes, there will be some trash in with the yard waste, but I sort out the stuff that can be recycled, keep the really interesting stuff & bag the rest as trash. (I'm the one that found a bong in a bag of leaves last fall!)I think most people realize this stuff SHOULD be composted and are glad that someone is doing it for them.

mommy, you found a bong? Now, that is some serious recycling!!!
I always say: enjoy all your composting experiences...big grin.

Depending on the neighborhood, one approach is the black Suburban with the tinted windows, and dress your bald relatives in sunglasses and old, dangly telephone cords, and have them hold their hands under the opposing arm pit, and they hop out and stand around looking busy, while you grab the old leaf bags. After a bit, you all get in the SUV and drive off to the next score.

Get really selective. Look for the clear bags so you can see what's in it. I try to scope out the people whose bagged leaves are shredded really fine. Then I use as much as I can directly as mulch to break down in place. If I can get a lot, then the rest goes in compost.

I shred as much of my own leaves as I can, but it takes more time to shred than to just bag, and I have several large oaks that drop loads, so I must admit that some years I have put some whole bagged leaves out for the city composting, and "scored" already shredded leaves from a neighbor. I figure it was a wash. But mostly I shred mine and since I do them in stages, then I can add several layers to the garden over a couple of months, and keep adding to compost piles and containers since they are breaking down and making room for more. If I come across really finely shredded leaves, then I use those for mulch and can just shred mine once and put in longer-term cold composting ( it takes 2 runs through the shredded to make them as fine as I like for some garden areas).

Grass is harder to go diving for--it's so heavy that the bags may break, and I don't ever want to make a mess on someone's driveway or street. So you have to position yourself really carefully to pick up those bags.

I never used to think about chemicals on purloined grass--I have Bermuda, so would get grass from someone with Zoysia or St. Aug--but now I think I may just stick with leaves because the nice upscale lawns may be more likely to use lawn services with herbicides. This time of year is nice for "compostables" because the leaves are falling, but the lawns are still growing, so there is a nice mixture of green/brown that is much better than if you tried to mix it yourself.

Another approach is the "Merry Leaf Raker". Think 'Burt" in Mary Poppins. A bent top hat, old cardigan sweater with leaves stuck all over, carry an enormous, pink rake. Loudly sing and hum "Chim-chimney" as you open and pre-search leaf bags, discarding the stuff with junk in there, and toss the clean stuff into a colorfully decorated pickup truck. Toot horn as you drive off, with a friendly wave.

If you don't want whole leaves, you can always freecycle them.

... or, just ask for 'em.

The few neighbors who actually rake and bag leaves now save them for me. Usually they deliver them to my house, just glad to get rid of them.

Karen

Another great source for compostable materials is your local municipal composting site. Why pick up leaves when you could get finished leaf mold. I have a great source for browns, greens, wood chips, nearly finished compost (leaf mold), and finished compost nearly to the humus stage. I take this stuff home, add my kitchen and yard waste (along with a couple of my neighborÂs stuff), twice a year I harvest about 3 years of black gold. Bill Hill

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Oh, I'm in good company here. :)
Unfortuntely, this year has been hard with the drought, so I haven't been able to get grass clippings as usual. But I will be getting leaves. . .Last year I had a landscaper deliver 24+ bags of already shredded leaves - he just needed to get rid of them and knew I could use them.
When I go looking for these compost materials I generally do not take bags from very well-manicured lawns, as I would think they use chemicals that I don't want in my garden. But there are plenty of neighbors who just mow and rake and those are the ones I pick up from. I also spread the word at work (they think I am very weird)for any fall decorations of hay bales and such.
Mommyandme - I want to know if the person who offered you the grass was in the same place you found the bong? LOL

Would that I had a municipal composting site. My town requires bagging of leaves in brown paper bags, picks them up, composts them ... and then sells the compost to landscapers and developers. Residents don't even get a whiff. Therefore, I have decided that the town shall not get a single leaf from me if I can help it.

There's always someone on the block who didn't get the "paper bag" memo and puts out leaves in clear plastic bags. The town ignores 'em, so those babies are mine as soon as they go out. And any others I can sneak up on while nobody's looking.

I'm not sure where I got the bong. I cruise my subdivision, a loop of about 1 1/2 miles, several times a week. I stuff my car with as many bags as possible. Someti9mes, I go around the loop again for a 2nd load. Once I've got all the bags home, I have no idea where any of them came from. The lady who offered me "grass" was definitely not the one who lost the bong, though.

Not only have I score leaves and shredded leaves, but I have gotten nice bags of clean pine straw that was bagged up and ready to go onto my beds. The owner of the home saves them for me every year.

It's a fact that some people curse those who collect their leaves around here. The collectors from the city won't take bags, just leaves. They either dump the bags that are not tied or tear open the ones that are tied, dump them into the truck, leaving the bags on the lawn. I took many bags before realizing that some owners had every intention of reusing them. One man even had notes taped to the bags telling the collectors to be careful as he considered the bags to be reusable. I now am careful in my decision. Cheap, tied bags come with me, open or loose-tied, durable looking bags just get dumped into my truck and the bags left in the yard just as the colletors would do. I don't touch trash cans as they are more likely to contain big sticks.
I am very happy that I collected so many last year (my first year), as I have a large quantity of compost now. Of course it's not enough, but at least I have gotten the ball rolling.

Look under "Raised Beds For Wheelchair Users" in column #1 of this Web Site by Anaerobic. This is an inexpensive way to compost and have a raised bed at waist height especially good for the handicapped all at the same time.

The suburbs east of me have a different setup. The folks rake their yard waste in a pile out on the curb and a GIANT leaf SUCKING truck comes buy and vacuums the whole mess up. really neat.

So, I go there will a bunch of other-peoples-leaf-bags and pick and choose which pile I want to snag from. Grass, leaves, mixtures, pine needles, an occassional plant. Fun Stuff!

Too bad I dont have a bigger car.

:)

I have a favorite neighborhood that I like to gather leaves from. All the same houses, same yards, and every house has a leaf-bearing tree on the front lawn - 1 of 3 varieties in the subdivsion (so i get a variety of leaves for my compost).

All the leaves here are placed at the curb in clear plastic bags. Here are my tips;

1. Avoid the yards that have landscaping that involves alot of gravel, volcanic rock, or bark mulch. It always ends up in the bags if they have to rake leaves off of those areas. Learn to sense the weight of a proper bag of leaves - shredders, blower/vacs etc.. HATE rocks.

2. If the yard doesn't look well maintained or like a junk heap - pass it. These bags always have extra garbage and trash in them.

3. Try to find bags of just leaves - not leaves with grass or other items in it. If it's just dry leaves, or one type of leaf I find they will keep better until I am ready to use them. Grass + leaves start the compost process very quickly!

4. Don't be inconspicuous. As mentioned before - be deliberate in your actions, and approach people if they are around. Most people understand that you want the leaves for compost.

5. Avoid bad smelling bags - yeah.. that's dog pee. A wet bag on a dry day is a good indicator too!

6. Respect other people's property - if you can't get the bags while standing on the public road - ask for them, or skip it. Don't walk into someones yard and take them unless they are clearly put out to curb for pickup.

When I find a great pile of chipped leaves or pine needles at the curb, I scoop them up into big plastic trash bins. . . .I find that's easier than fighting with paper bags.

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This tarp bag holds about 8 bushels of leaves and totes a lot more stuff in fewer trips.

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And don't forget to grab all the pumpkins. :)

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8 bushels of leaves = about how many bags? I might get me one of those tarp bags for my trunk.....

I got a trunk full of moldy gushy yukky punkins today too. :)

I haven't gotten any pumpkins yet, maybe after Thanksgiving people will toss some out.

I did pick up another tip:

If you get the chance to chat with a homeowner, see if you can find out about the "yard men" in the neighborhood.

Last week a fierce Yorkie threatened to tear me limb from limb.

When his owner came out & captured him, she visited with me a few minutes.

turns out that, although trash day is Thursday, several neighbors in the area have their yard care done on Tuesday.

The yard care company bags these people's leaves & puts them in the alley *and*, since they also do yard care in another city that will not pick up yard waste, they leave at least a couple of bags of other clients' leaves at each house!

So I can pick up a ton of leaves in that neighborhood on Tuesday night & then pick up again on Wednesday night from the houses whose owners do their own yard work.

I live in the contry and most neibors have oak trees and I have made a deal, usually on the spot I come around one week and rake with a tow behind leaf rake,,rake them into big piles (out of the way)then next week put them into the shreder then into bags, store them in piles ,still in bags around my garden until needed----most people are glad I rake them,,saves them doing it--here they burn most. I also hit cemeterys,,some will rake for me---the city cemetary has more than I can shred and usually burns them before I can get all of them..

demeter, I found out this week that our sanitation/water company does the same in my area with regard to collecting yard waste, but not sharing it with the county residents. They gave me the details on which company is contracted to take the yard waste to compost it. The water company says this contractor gets all the compost and sells it. The only benefit they really get is a 15% reduction in landfill usage. They explained it costs them for the pickup of everyone's waste, separation and disposal. Crazy! If you ask me the contractor got a super sweet deal. As a county resident though, I feel jipped, especially when I just found out that the county I lived in for the last decade next door gives out compost quarterly to its residents (I had no idea, but also didn't have my own house then either).

I live in a young neighborhood with no mature foliage. I planted 5 leafy trees in my yard, but it's going to be years and years before I have any appreciable amount of leaves.

Just today I noticed leaves starting to collect in the work parking lot blown to the curbs. The thought crossed my mind to acquire a rake and bring plastic bags in the truck to work Monday. Another thought occurred to me that I might look kind of crazy to my coworkers after work in the dark dressed in my casuals raking leaves off asphalt. It did look like an easy score though.

I've actually been intentionally diverting my drive home everyday from work into neighborhoods with trees hoping for a leaf-bag haul, but only the last few days have I noticed the leaves finally separating off trees. I've not seen a single leaf bag anywhere here yet. I hope this weekend is fair enough weather that alot of people clean up their yards and leave bags of the goodness at the curb. I'll be hitting heavy Monday. Wish me luck.

I ran an ad in the little local paper 2 weeks ago asking for leaves. It read; Wanted, leaves for my garden.

They didn't even charge me for the ad. So far I have over 50 bags of leaves and promises of more. One family shredded all their leaves before bagging. I don't know why...don't care. I've also made some new aquaintances and every person has said they'll save my # till next fall.

I'm picking up another 12 bags today.

Boo Ya Ha! The next little town up the road is one that offers curb side leaf vacuum service, and as I drove by I saw mountains of leaves piled up. The street truck won't take them if they are mixed with grass clippings or sticks mixed in, so I still found bags. I went ahead and stuffed 11 bags in my car, and I feel like a kid at Christmas (a kid with gloves on!) to see if I got grass clippings too. I marked one house when I could only fit two of the dozen bags they had out. It's like a sample program!

I LOVE it when I find a steaming pile of grass clippings!

BTW, has anybody seen my rake?

Hi,

I am VERY VERY new to composting. I only grow veggies so have to be REALLY careful when I go leaf hunting. I live in a city where you only blow/rake your leaves to the curb and city comes along and gets them so not many folks bag their leaves. However there are some neighbors of mine who have "super lawns" and they go into shock should there be one fallen leaf in sight - they bag their leaves. I know which of these folk do not spray with anything my veggies can not accept and those are the neighbors whose leaves I go and get.

I am mixing my leaves (75%) with coffee grounds (25%)from Starbucks. So far I can only put them into a really large trash can to compost.

DL

ok, ok... I'll admit it. I cheat. One of the local tree trimming services had a monster chipping machine and they bring me whole truck loads of chipped tree trimmings.
This year was different since the developers came in and cut down and entire row of windbreak trees. They had a ENORMOUSLY GIGANTICLY RIDICULOUSLY big chipper that could actually grind whole trees 3 foot thick! They couldn't say "where do you want it" fast enough. The 8 foot... yes... 8 foot high mountain they gave me should last a while.
but most years I get truck loads from the tree service people and they are glad because they don't have to pay at the dump to get rid of it.
If you don't have a tree service company with a chipper truck, check with who ever cleans out the vegetation for the utility companies. A lot of times they have this sort of chipper and truck.

Well This past summer I had some trees trimmed and got that pile along with whatever else was already in their truck. I used up that load quite fast (perhaps 3-4 yards.) Another tree service company was working in the area and I told them they could dump a pile in front of my house which they did a few days later and that was probably another 3-4 yards. Used alot of that up and let the neighbor use some on the dirt road in front of his driveway too.
Finally, the neighbor accross from us had alot of trimming done. That company was happy to dump a couple loads for us and they even spread some of it on the driveway for us. That pile is almost gone saddly. Only a yard left of pile (granted there is a deep layer on the ground where the piles had been but I wasn't really planning to try scooping that up.) I suppose I need to start making some phone calls looking for services that need to dump in this corner of the county.

I use alot of the chips to make deep mulch on the cardboard between and around the actual planting beds to keep weeds away from the really good dirt. I'm also laying cardboard where ever I find the grass with the really nasty, painful, spiny, prickly seed heads. Three are a couple places I will have to just continue pulling it but wherever it looks like a good place for mulch or garden bed, it is getting smothered (after I pluck any showing seed heads that is.)

There are literally hundreds of bags of leaves sitting curbside in my neighborhood this year available for grabbing because the crazy lady and her daughter who used to spend evenings gathering the bags now sit at home watching TV and reading, while waiting for the dump truck to deliver. (4 dump truck loads so far this fall!)

The leaves are hanging on the trees here longer than usual. I called the Director of Public Works and asked if they would deliver 3 truckloads of leaves (30 cubic yards) once they start vacuuming. He said sure. It saves them gas and time if they are working in my neighborhood and I give them public praise. A win-win for all.
With the on-going drought, mulch will be critical this year.

My area is so mercenary its ridiculous. We had a storm which took down 1,000 trees in my town alone. The contracted outside help to do the cleanup and gave the contractors the rights to SELL and the trimmings.

No free chips here.

geez.

Two huge bins-full tonight: one full of grass, and one full of leaves and grass clippings that was already starting to compost in the bin. Tomorrow I shred, and then...mulch!

Finally found someone that raked leaves over the weekend into a pile in the road by my work (I've been looking/waiting for weeks). The leaves were mixed with tons of very soft pine needles. Our clay soil is very alkaline, so I hope this will compost well and help out my soil. I only got a few bags that I hand on-hand. Hopefully the city doesn't suck up the rest before I get back to the heap on the road.

I have been collecting the coffee grounds with filters from the local convenience mart for about 6 months now. We have a system going where I swap out 2 5-gallon buckets about once a week. I also pick up coffee grounds at Starbucks whenever I stop in there.

My town does not have curbside pickup of leaves or brush, instead it has a municipal composting site. Residents drop off their leaves and grass clippings and the town composts it. Residents can pick up as much rich black compost as they can haul away in the car every Saturday. The past month or so, I grab bags of leaves off of the pile that is going to be future compost too.

Sometimes I'll pick bags of leaves up off the curb from other towns when I'm driving around.

In the past, I've also had the municipal tree-trimmers drop off piles of wood chips. But I still have a nice big pile from some tree-removal done in my yard 2 years ago that is now nicely aged and ready to spread. Coincidentally, I'm having a couple large Norway maples removed in 3 days, and I'll have another BIG pile of fresh chippings!

I also manage some commercial property and have a constant supply of large cardboard. Since last fall, I've been making lasagne beds with all this stuff - cardboard, then coffee grounds, then leaves, grass clippings, finished compost, and whatever else on top!

Not many leaves here yet, but I collected 24 bags of grass clippings and some grass/pine needle mix. 14 Bags of grass clipping were spread over the bare spots on about 1/4 acre.

8 bags of mixed went to start a lasagna garden and the rest went on a former drive area which consists of clay with embedded gravel. This area is also in the root zone of several large trees so it has resisted all attempts at getting anything to grow despite adding pond dirt.

Some great (and fun) tips here! I decided I'd go leafnapping this fall along the streets downtown; but now I got a better idea. My mom and stepdad live in a small retirement area of town with about eight homes and everyone rakes their leaves out into the road on certain days before "leaf pickup day". I've made arrangements to get their first. Each house is about 20' from the other, so it'll be easy pickins'.

I've been getting OPBL too. The first few were mixed w/ grass clippings and were already cooking in the bag. I spread them out and mowed them to shred the leaves a bit more. Next bags came w/ a lot of sticks. I pulled out the branches and pine cones and mowed em. Last time I was much pickier feeling the bags for branches first. I leave work at 11am so I browse during day light then pick 'em up on my way to work at 0330.

My city makes us use clear plastic, so it's pretty easy to tell if it's mostly decidous, but they get damp and harder to see through. I end up getting pine needles mixed in too.

The city compost is marketed as nutrigreen and sells for $5 a bag, pretty steep. The city I'm moving to sells it for $17 a yard, $34 for a pick up bed full, that'll help my new raised beds alot!

don't need to go leafnapping---last fall I had 15 huge bags of shreaded leaves when I got done cleaning my yard, and its a small yard (under 5000 sq ft of lawn) with only three trees in it, but I do constantly get the neighbors leaves, as they don't know how to rake, and mother nature blows them over to me. Oh, I don't rake---I vaccume the yard and shread them, vac/shreaders are a wonderful thing!!!!!