We've had crappy weather here which has put a damper on leaf collecting. One month's rain in 4 days last weekend!

In any case I've managed to collect 70+ bags of shredded leaves for mulching and for the compost. Now comes the time when people don't want to shred anymore so I'll start collecting whole leaves for the leaf mold pile. No one wants to know how many I'll drag home for that task...

You are right though - 'they' have finally clued in, much to our chagrin!! Can we uneducate them somehow??? :O)

I think that Lloyd on the Soil and Compost Forum might be hoarding them again this year...

Here is a link that might be useful: Lloyd's pile...

In my neck of the woods, it seems that leaf fall has been very late this year. It was kind of nice to have the colorful leaves on the trees so long. A combination this week of a rainy Tuesday and wickedly windy Wednesday (I swear I was waiting to see Dorothy and Toto go flying by my living room window, it was so God-awful windy!) - made for the leaves finally coming down... mostly!

I was driving through a neighboring town today, and they collect their leaves right off the curb. The residents rake them in piles along the street, and I guess the town trucks come along and vacuum them up. As I'm driving down the street I told my daughter I was going to come back at night dressed in black with a black ski hat on, and do some collecting! I had visions of using her boyfriend's monster truck and turning it into one big leaf container - if only I had a big enough vacuum/shredder!

Geez, I nearly crashed my car when I saw a HUGE (at least 20 feet long, 3 feet high, 10 feet wide) pile of leaves that not only looked already shredded, but generously mixed with pine needles! And I had to pass it again on the way home! Been thinking about that baby all evening!

:)
Dee

Where are my leaves?? After the wind storm the other day they are down the block and in other peoples yards, Lol. ;-)
CMK

Over in the neighbors yard. LOL!!!! 45 mile an hour winds sent them across the street. " To Infinity and beyond".
The rest are safely tucked into my flower beds.

Do you shred the leaves before you put them around your plants? How do you keep them from blowing away or do you work them into the soil after you shred them? Just curious! Our community garden shreds all the leaves the landscaping contractor collect/already shredded and dumps them in a hugh pile down at the gardens for anybody that rents a garden space here. Just bring your bucket, bags and shovel and use all you want.

I shred them with my mower and let it blow them into the flower beds, then I tuck them in around the more tender plants. The wind moves them around some but once they get wet they pretty much stay put.

Most of my leaves have either been raked into beds, or they've blown into the shrub borders/woods (same super windy day/night as Diggerdee). Some of the pesky leaves fall into the gutters or blow under the deck or along house foundation - cleaned the gutters and raked those out this weekend.

I've collected about 15 paper bags of leaves so far from the town compost site, which I store in back and let rot to create leaf mold. And this year, I finally asked my neighbor to blow/rake his leaves into the shrub border I'm creating along our property line. He was quite amenable to that! Saves some collecting on my part. :)

I also stuff a few black plastic bags with leaves to use as insulation around the pot ghetto of small plants. Emptied the leaf mold out of last years bags into the veggie area of the garden. A couple bags were in good enough shape to be re-used so I stuffed them with leaves again and tuck them behind the pots. This is the leaf mold that came out of the bags, after sitting in them for a year. It shrinks down a lot but it's great stuff!
{{gwi:282611}}

I am short leaves this year as well. New neighbor behind me has added a garden and keeps all the leaves that the old neighbor would dump in my leaf pile. Another neighbor is now mowing her leaves and leaving them on her lawn. Another neighbor has hired a lawn service and they came and took them away.

terrene, you a SMAHT GAHdinah.
best,
mindy

MXK3, I'm in your neck of the woods, SE Michigan, Oakland Co. to be specific.

Last fall, I was able to gather over 500 bags of leaves along the curbside in the fall over about a 4 week period. This year, I've gotten about 150 in the same time span.

It looks to me like most people just didn't get them cleaned up this year. Last year, the leaves fell quite a bit later (very late, in fact), but we had that wonderful stretch of warm, abnormally warm, record warm sunny November weather. This year, cooler, wetter, and especially not very nice on the weekends.

They'll clean them up in March and April if they don't get them now, so I'll just go back out in the spring. But it is disappointing, I was really hoping to gather a lot more than I could find.

My last chance will be Wed/Thurs/Friday. Luckily, I have wed off, as the office will be closed and the boss out of town to see family, so that will help, and the trucks won't come until Friday. I will cruise the neighborhood on turkey day and see what I can find.

I scored somewhere around 15 bags last night! :0)

Just scored 6 more leaf bags driving through a neighboring town this morning, people put the bags out at the end of their driveways in that town. Could have gotten 30 or 40 if they fit in the car!

Denni, I am dying of curiosity to know what you do with 150 bags of leaves, let alone 500!!?? 8-O

I live in the mountains of western NC,so I never have a shortage of leaves,probably trillions! I have raking/blowing leaves forever this fall,and they're still not done! I am already tired of all the leaves,since we are past the colors of fall. I just blew off my decks again today. Phil