Mulch leaves with a flail mower

[Joemonstermaker]

I have a big yard with a lot of trees and this time of year is The Leaf Apocalypse.

Has anyone here blown leaves in to huge piles and used their flail mower on the tractor to pulverize them?
I mean, I suppose I’ll have to just go out and try it, but I’ll toss the question anyway.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Lots of trees here too. Never do anything with them, I let them blow 'down the road' and forget about them.

 

[sheepfarmer]

My flail and tractor are too big for the parts of yard I need to de leaf, or at least I have never tried it. Very interested in your idea. Try two experiment? Try just mowing the yard where leaves are, instead of making a pile, and also try mulching the pile. My guess is it might work in the "mowing" trial, but will just scatter the leaves everywhere if you try a big pile.

 

[Glassman13]

Lots of leaves, Our last house was surrounded by hardwoods and the leave battles began! In the end the best solution seemed to be on the last dry fall days in Nov. with the mulching mower just chop them up! Keep mowing till they're cut up pretty small. Supposed to be good for the soil too.

 

[Creature Meadow]

Seems it will sling them everywhere, but neat outside the box thinking. Give her a whirl and see.

For me I blow mine in a big piles wait till it rains good on them then pile in the bucket of the tractor and off to the garden I go. I spread them out, wait till they are wet so I can pack them in the bucket. Wheat is my cover crop In the garden so as it grows now till it turns cold I cut it back to about 4 inches and while doing this I mulch the leaves at the same time.

In the spring have lots of leaves chopped up and the final cut on my wheat. I then disk all the organic material into my garden.

Sometimes depending on how many I have left before planting I'll burn off the garden before disking.

I came across a chipper shredder for a deal so I am run them through it then transport to the garden first this year. Be fewer trips and the breakdown will be much faster.

If you have a garden the leaves are a great resource to use for building up soil structure.

Good luck.

Jay

 

[fruitcakesa]

Seems it will sling them everywhere, but neat outside the box thinking. Give her a whirl and see.

For me I blow mine in a big piles wait till it rains good on them then pile in the bucket of the tractor and off to the garden I go. I spread them out, wait till they are wet so I can pack them in the bucket. Wheat is my cover crop In the garden so as it grows now till it turns cold I cut it back to about 4 inches and while doing this I mulch the leaves at the same time.

In the spring have lots of leaves chopped up and the final cut on my wheat. I then disk all the organic material into my garden.

Sometimes depending on how many I have left before planting I'll burn off the garden before disking.

I came across a chipper shredder for a deal so I am run them through it then transport to the garden first this year. Be fewer trips and the breakdown will be much faster.

If you have a garden the leaves are a great resource to use for building up soil structure.

Good luck.

Jay

We live in the woods and have collected and spread many fully packed bucket loads of leaves on all our gardens and compost piles. Cheap and good for the soil

 

[bird dogger]

I have a big yard with a lot of trees and this time of year is The Leaf Apocalypse.

Has anyone here blown leaves in to huge piles and used their flail mower on the tractor to pulverize them?
I mean, I suppose I’ll have to just go out and try it, but I’ll toss the question anyway.

Joe, I just purchased a flail mower so I'll have to give your idea a whirl while there's still a few leaves left on the trees yet to drop.

But here's a thread with info on what I use to take care of leaves on my heavily wooded farmstead:

leaf vacuum power rake

So the wife give me a pass to buy a power rake for my BX. So I got a couple questions ? Which is a better brand to get ? Here lot people talk about cyclone rake brand is that the same one I'd get if I went tough my Kubota dealer. ? And are they easy to assemble and set up on the tractor ?

www.orangetractortalks.com

Whenever a large amount of leaves decides to drop I'll hook up and give them a quick go over and blow them back into the woods. It's really quick and easy to keep up with them as they drop rather than wait for them all to be down and then depend on the weather to not snow or rain til the leaves can be taken care of. the only use for a rake and hand held blower around here is in the wife's flower bed and right next to the house.

If the wind is absolutely not cooperating and the leaves need cleaning up.....they get blown into a pile and scooped up into a trailer and dumped on the 3 acre corn patch ground.

My pto blower is pushing 30 yrs old now and still going strong. Never a problem and never even had to replace a belt yet.

regards, david

 

[Joemonstermaker]

Yup. It pulverizes them.