It’s officially Fall! You know what that means? Bonfires, carving pumpkins, and cleaning up the leaves from the yard. We know, it doesn’t sound exciting. What if we told you that you don’t have to rake the leaves? That’s right! A recent study that was done at Michigan State University shows that you can forget about raking, blowing and even… Bagging the leaves! Instead, you can mulch your leaves with your lawn mower! Not only will this save you time, but it will also improve your soil and add nutrients. Keep reading to see how to do it…
Mowing over Those Leaves
The first thing you should do is to take the grass catcher off your lawn mower; and get to mowing over those leaves. You will want to reduce your leaf clutter to about the size of a dime. The way to know when you’re finished is when you can see about half an inch of grass through the mulched leaf layer. Once the lead bits settler in, microbes and worms get to work on recycling them!
You don’t need a fancy mower to do this, any kind of rotary-action mower will do the trick. With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter!
Uses for Shredded Leaves
Once you’ve used your mower to mulch up the leaves, there are many great uses for them, such as:
- Compost Pile: Add shredded leaves to compost pile. The shredded leaves are a great source of carbon for the compost pile. You should layer them with a nitrogen-rich waste, such as leaf clippings, and keep a small pile off to the side so you can sprinkle some over the messy kitchen scraps.
- Leaf Mold: Some gardeners like to process leaf compost separately to produce a super-rich mulch and soil additive called, leaf mold.
- Container Booster: Fill your planting containers about half-full of tightly-packed leaves, then add regular potting soil and plants. Essentially, the leaves will break down slowly and feed the plant, saving on the cost of potting soil.
- Instant Buld Bed: To create a bed if spring woodland bulbs such as daffodils, fisrt layer shredded leaves and topsoil, then place a layer of bulbs, then cover with layers of leaves and topsoil to about 8″-10″ deep.
See Great Results in the Spring
When spring comes back, you’ll notice something in the soil. The leaf litter you mulched up in the fall will have disappeared. Your rake will look dusty and neglected. Your grass will look greener than ever. There is nothing better knowing you are helping your environment and ensuring the health of your lawn by mulching your leaves.
Mulching: A Better Use of Resources
When you rake your leaves, it costs you. Your local taxes pay for trucks to sweep up your leaves or pick up your leaf bags, which often end in landfills. If you burn leaves, you’re just sending up clouds of carbon into the atmosphere. When using a Mulching kit leaves simply recycles a natural resource, giving you richer soil for free!
Mower Decks: What Mulching Kit Do I Get?
There are plenty of mowers with mulching capability on the market today. As well, you can easily outfit a conventional, non-mulching mower with a serrated blade specially designed for mulching. All you need to do is find the make and model of your mower and search it on our easy to use Mutton Power website!