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The Kitchen Table

Picking up Leaves

11 years ago

Does your town pick them up at the curb for you?

If not, what do you do with them?

If so--how? In our old county, all the towns had big vacuum trucks that just sucked them up into a closed truck and they were carted to the mulching place. They'd come around about every 2 weeks, which was nice. Here, they do pick them up, but only once a season. They're out there today. With a large property and over a half dozen mature deciduous trees, we had a LOT of leaves at the curb by now (even with mulching a lot with the mower and putting more through the mulcher). They have a very odd piece of heavy equipment that has a strange, claw on the front. It's sort of diamond shaped, and opens down the center. Drags along the street (yes, it damages the street a bit each time), then they close it, and it's picked up so they can drop the leaves into the waiting truck. Seems to take a lot longer than the vacuum arrangement does.

What does your town do?

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Comments (11)

pam_25f
11 years ago
Spring and fall the town picks up required brown paper bags of leaves,etc. Also pick up branches less than 9 inches in diameter. All ends up in village compost.
grandma_bonnie
11 years ago
I just did the leaves last week - we put them in our green waste cans which is picked up every week - I filled our can plus two other neighbor's cans - boy was I sore! This may be the last year that I do it!
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
11 years ago
No leaves are wasted here! We collect and mulch ours plus grab some from around the neighborhood.
sheilajoyce_gw
11 years ago
I live in southern California, and we have a green garbage can for every house and they are emptied weekly. We put all mulchable garden waste in it.
maire_cate
11 years ago
Azzalea - my town has the odd claw truck and it does leave scratch marks on the pavement. Delran and some of the other nearby towns use the vacuum truck. Our leaves get picked up once a month but this year because of Hurricane Sandy we're only having one because they had to devote the first round to tree and brush removal.
cynic
11 years ago
To answer the question, we have places we can haul them, otherwise you pay extra on the garbage service for a 90 gal cart for yard waste. It's illegal to put yard waste in the garbage here. I've never understood the bagging leaves thing. I mow them 3 or 4 times and they mulch down and do some good naturally. Or I use them to kill weeds around trees and plants rather than buy weed cloth stuff that doesn't work nearly as well.

And then people go and buy fertilizer in plastic bags and put down to replace the nutrition lost by removing the leaves, and then put a plastic bag into the landfill since it can't be recycled. Go figure as they say! Kind of like driving to the mall or gym to walk around in a circle on a beautiful day.
azzalea
Original Author
11 years ago
I've been trying to mulch mine, as I said above, but this year with DH having surgery, I did the best I could, leaf-blowing many of them to the curb. I don't really know how to start the mulcher, and the mower was inaccessible to me, and he wasn't able to do the heavy lifting to get to it.

We still have some, and will be mulching them, as needed.
mary3444
11 years ago
As we own a small landscaping business we do the leaf pickup for our customers. On our truck we have sides & a top & also a machine that picks the up & blows the leaves into the truck, just like the town has but a smaller version. We blow the leaves into piles with leaf blowers & back packs. Maybe that is why I have had so many surgeries so ladies let the husbands do the leaves
Marilyn Sue McClintock
11 years ago
We just mow ours, we live in a woods.

Sue
carol_in_california
11 years ago
We don't get that many leaves here in our area.....:
I have been known to go rake the leaves at my neighbors houses to put into my compost pile.
jannie
11 years ago
Long Island was affected by Hurricane Sandy, but my town not so bad. We lost electric for 22 hours. My town suspended trash and leaf collections to pick up hurricane debris, mostly fallen trees. We've gone back to pick ups as of December 1.

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