What are you doing with your leaves? Mow-mulching them into the lawn? Raking and bagging for the compost pile? Ignoring them and hoping they will blow over to the neighbor's before the snow falls? Or ... GOD forbid ... burning them?

I've been taking bags from the "rake and bag" people on my block to shred with my mower and use in my flower beds and compost bin. I also mow-mulch the leaves from my trees into the lawn. I've only got 7 trees and it's easy to do. Most of the "rake and bag" folks then haul their bags to a near by farm for dumping or burning. So, when I offer to take them and bring back the empty bags...they usually agree to the offer.

A lot of my neighbors are in the "ignore them and hope they blow away by Thanksgiving" group. (lol)

I've tried to evangelise (in a nice way) to a couple of my "rake and burn" neighbors about how wasteful leaf burning is ... but the fires keep burning anyway. Leaf burning is still OK here in Iowa Falls, unless there is a fire danger from drought. I wish it was banned...

Pete In I.F.

I also use them to mulch my roses. But I have a LOT of leaves so I finally just end up pileing the shredded leaves in an enormous pile behind the garage where they aren't an eyesore for the neighbors and let them rot down all winter. I will use that leaf mold to side dress plantings or as mulch in the early part of the summer.

Unfortunately, using the bagger on the rider doesn't really work that well. It fills up in about 2 minutes. I use the rider to mow them and direct them into quasi-piles then run the pusher over them to suck them up or I rake them into the garden cart to haul to where I want them. I usually wait until most of the leaves are off my maples before I embark on this project. My husband just had hernia surgery so you can guess who's going to be doing the bulk of the yard work this fall.

Leaf burning is also allowed in Collins. I hate it. The whole neighborhood smells of smoking wet leaves, you can't hang out laundry or open the windows. Do we really need to release all that smoke into the atmosphere! At least in Marshalltown the city composts them.

Maria

The second batch, on the day after the shredding, fell like the last spring snow while I raked (some of) them to the curb for the sucker truck. When the truck came by about two hours later, it was hard to tell that I had raked at all.

Those leaves were raked and stock piled in case we run short of leaves later when we're decorating for Thanksgiving.

The third batch, the ones that fell between Thursday and last weekend, went through the mower and they're feeding the lawn.

The fourth batch that fell overnight on Sunday (they're getting sneaky!) was rounded up and used to stuff pillows. I have almost all my Christmas gifts finished!

The current batch of leaves is still on the lawn, and they are all golden and crispy - great with dip! I have some other tasty recipes, too, if I can just find them.

The oaks on the boulevard have just started to drop their leaves, so I supposed I'll also be able to knit oakleaf afgans for everyone on the block before the snow falls.

At least with snow, it melts ;~)