Good for you!

Being good to the earth by your own behavior & by converting others!

(You just have to keep expanding your territory, there are plenty of homeowners out there who haven't been exposed to your "example".)

Eventually you may have to grow some cover crops for the organic matter as bagged leaves get further away.

Deanna, you have to drive around the neighborhood and pick up bags. That is what my husband does.
Dawn

I've been trying to keep quiet to make amends for being a curmudgeon in the past, but have to ask: how is it better to mulch mow, which spews great quantities of pollutants into the air, uses endangered fossil fuels, and makes a racket, than to rake, which is quiet and a nice exercise - assuming the raked leaves get picked up at the curb and taken somewhere to be turned to mulch en masse?

The best thing imo is to rake the leaves and compost them with other materials or alone in a wire leaf bin - the healthiest way, for the body and the environment, is also usually the cheapest.

Paul..you're not old! lol

Lloyd

Paul, I think they're saying it's better to mulch mow than to bag up the leaves and throw them in the trash, which is what most people do.
Deanna I can see why you're converting so many people because the truth is most people just don't know any better. For years by father would mow up all of our leaves and throw them back into the woods! Now I saw someone on here saying they were caught raking leaves out of their woods and into their yard. LOL
If I wouldn't of found this site I wouldn't know 1/2 as much as I currently do and I still don't know much. There's so much to learn about gardening that it's hard to know where to start and most of us start by getting advise from people that know more than we do. So good for you maybe you can convert the whole neighborhood.

Strouper

paulns......The issue you brought up is one that I was thinking about earlier today. Here is my take on it......In my town, just about everyone rakes or blows (usually blows) their leaves out to the street. Right there, most people are burning fossil fuels. But let's suppose they raked them. Then a big dump truck and some type of bucket loader comes around and picks them up...more fossil fuels. From there they are carted to the town recycling center where they are first run through a shredder and then dumped into piles...more fossil fuels. But it doesn't end there. To expedite the decomposition process, the town uses machinery to regularly turn each pile...more fossil fuels. And, of course, a few months later, the same guy who blew his leaves into the street comes driving up to the recycling center to pick up a can of compost...more fossil fuels.

I guess the ideal scenario would be if everyone raked their leaves and dumped them into a compost bin, and from there spread the new compost by hand......I only have one compost bin, which is full, so rather than rake my leaves to the curb and start the whole process from the previous paragraph, I just mulch mow them once a week. My lawnmower sips gas (about a gallon or two a YEAR). So far, so good.

I am glad that I don't have this problem.

Hay rutgers 1,
That problem my look deep but come spring I bet those leaves are only an inch or two thick.

At this point I am wishing I had those problems, there seem to be very few leaves available down here and most of the yard waste bags I'm finding lately are strange. I found one bag that was half gravel, looks like some one was pulling stuff out of their pond. Another pile that was all sand, wood mulch and some charred wood (I guess they took the instructions seriously when they say replace the mulch yearly, most of us just add more rather than raking up and bagging the old stuff for the trash.)

sigh

Hey Dawn,

I thought last year your friend in the landscaping business gave you leaves? Did that source dry up?

Deanna

That would be me, who gets the stuff delivered!No more curb shoppingt for me!

I get mine delivered also.

{{gwi:281727}}

Frank

Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf Truck

Time to get out more, make new friends......LOL and OMG! that pile is to die for starterdude!

Holy moly, Frank! Do you need that many leaves? What do you use them for?

Deanna

I use the compost in my potting mix for my nursery business.

Frank

Frank...That's beautiful man. (sniff sniff, with a tear in my eye.) Seriously though, that is awesome.

Lloyd

I get my leaves from a neighborhood that is 4+ miles from my house where they bag leaves. I jam my pickup truck very full, including putting the cleanest bags inside the cab. Evidently the people who are supposed to pick up yard waste aren't very reliable, as one place where I was taking their bagged leaves off the curb the guy yelled "Thank you" out of the house.

I saw another guy loading a trailer with bags of leaves. I thought at first it was another leaf stealer, but he was wandering around the yard such that it was clear he lived there. We eyed each other, finally I took some leaves from the house next to his. He asked when I was done and he took the rest, to the dump for alleged composting. I have been to that dump, it is shared by my town and his city, it is full of plastic bags and pots and all sorts of crap, I can't imagine where/how it gets composted. Anyway, I tried to convince him to take the leaves to my house instead of the dump (I live closer to him than the dump) but he said he had to pick up another person's leaves and he had some trash to throw out. I did get him to give me the pile of flower pots he was taking to the dump.

Anyway, take other people's leaves if you can. I am glad of this neighborhood, in most of that county they just rake the leaves to the street.

Marcia