Rake Landscape rake and pine needles?

   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #1  

bam747

Silver Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2004
Messages
200
Location
Palmer Divide in El Paso County, Colorado
Tractor
John Deere 4720 (2007)
Does anyone have experience using a landscape rake to clean up years worth of pine needle accumulation? We also call this stuff "pine straw" around here.

I'm hoping I can use a landscape rake, which would be a new purchase, to drag the pine straw into large piles and then use a FEL to load it into a dumpster (no burning around here!).
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #2  
I have used my landscape rake for everything that can be dragged, including pine needles. It is a great implement to own and I use it often to clean up around the properties.

Make sure you adjust the teeth so that you don't have them digging down into your dirt. A combination of hitch position and top link length needs to be played with until you can drag without tearing up your yard. Just play with the top link until you get the right angle (shortening and lengthening) so you can drag needles and not dirt.

One thing I do is to just lower the hitch until it is almost to the ground and drag some material to start building it up in the rake. This will grab other material and the teeth are above the ground enough not to tear it up.
John
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #3  
A landscape rake is to be my next implement purchase, but not necessarily for raking pine needles.
I only wish you were a neighbor! We have a few pines large enough to provide some pinestraw for mulching (12 years old) but not enough for all our flower and veggie beds. I've had pretty good luck turning my toothbar down on the FEL and backdragging the pinestraw into small piles that I then push into larger piles. Takes a light touch on the loader to prevent getting too much dirt with the pine needles.
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles?
  • Thread Starter
#4  
You'd probably be flabbergasted and exasperated to know that there are hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of large trash bags of pine straw collected as refuse around here (the Black Forest area along the front range of Colorado) every fall!

Pine straw is definitely considered undesirable and a fire hazard here. It also does appear to work well as a cover mulch since literally nothing else grows where the pine straw is thick at all. I've never wanted to use it as a cover mulch since I seem to remember, possibly incorrectly, that it is very acidic in nature.

Maybe I should look at this as a business opportunity and start up a pine straw mitigation service? Hummm...
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #5  
BAM-
As mentioned above, you would be surprised what a good rake will do. I have been using my FEL to scrape off top soil in a problem area on my property then using my rake to grab the rocks, sticks, mud etc. This thing does an awesome job with all I have thrown at it so far. My only advice is get a good one, strong tines, adjustable, with wheel mounts too if you think you may want to put wheels on it someday for finish work, built well, and heavy. You can get pretty inexpensive ones at Northern tool, but they won't have the weight behind them. Also get one wider than your tractor, atleast 2 feet wider. Then if you want to angle it you can still cover the width of the tractor wheels.
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #6  
It's undesirable for those who have no use for the pinestraw around here.
I don't know about your area, but bales of pinestraw are sold at Lowe's, HD, and local garden centers for a premium in LA and MS. If you have a large supply it might be worth your investment to buy a baler if you can get set up with a volume buyer. Much better than hay generally, but you've got to have the pinestraw.
Here's a link to baling pinestraw.

You might try doing a google search on "pine straw baler".
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #7  
You need a pine straw rake. Not the big motorized baling things, just a 3 pt rake. Leinbach makes one. It is a 3 point hitch frame with long tines that are like 7 guage spring steel wire. It is way less agressive than a landscape rake. I think Carver, one of the sponsers on this website
sells them.
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #8  
bam 747; A landscape rake will do many jobs. The reply about setting it properly is very true. If you do any landscaping make sure you pick up a set of wheels to install on the rake. With wheels you can make things level and smooth. IE driveway gravel will be "humpy" due to rake following contour ground beneath it as when you install wheels it levels out like aroad grader. The rake will take some abuse so get a good one.
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #9  
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( You need a pine straw rake. Not the big motorized baling things, just a 3 pt rake. Leinbach makes one. It is a 3 point hitch frame with long tines that are like 7 guage spring steel wire. It is way less agressive than a landscape rake. I think Carver, one of the sponsers on this website
sells them. )</font>

I purchased the Leinbach pinestraw rake several years ago. It was approximately $150. It is very light, less than 100 pounds, but does a great job raking pinestraw without tearing up the ground. I also use it to de-thatch the lawn and to "freshen up" the gravel on the driveway. I also have a landscape rake but no wheels on it. While the landscape rake does a good job, it will definitely tear the grass right out of the ground.

Initially I bought the pinestraw rake to gather pinestraw for landscaping purposes. I have about 17 acres of pine trees and do not want to disturb the top of the ground when raking the pine straw.

I have since found the pinestraw rake can also be used to rake leaves without harming the ground.

Bob
 
   / Landscape rake and pine needles? #10  
20060323

Ditto on the Leinbach rake. The Moravian guys over in Winston-Salem make stuff that works, no frills, low price. They are also a goto place for Woods, for whom I hear they are the largest east coast dealer.

I haven't tried out my pinestraw rake very much so far, but would caution that the pin spacing did not suit my ag sized tractor (Cat 2), so I had to modify with some welding. It may well fit my BX (soon to be B3030 or JD 3320) just fine w/o mods.

If anyone goes near W-Salem, NC, a visit to to Leinbach at 5000 Reynolda Rd will make you think time has stood still, with nice people (say hi to Todd and Jane for me), good prices and an awesome selection, esp of unusual farm/equipment related items as well as the most complete selection of Carhartt stuff anywhere.

J
 
 
 
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