Leaf Vacuum

[WinterDeere]

Unless you have pine needles or oak leaves just mulch them in. In peak fall I run around with the mower every 2 days. A quick mulch then do a really good one as a last mow. In spring you wouldnt even know.

Depends on density. I get away with "mulching in" the walnuts leaves, who drop their leaves early in the season when it's still dry, and leaf load isn't that bad. Even the oaks, who drop their leaves so slowly from fall into spring, can be mulched in with good Gator style blades.

But the enormous silver maples that line our rear property line? Forget it!!! I'm working leaves that are damn near knee deep for a few weeks each fall, from those damn trees. Even mulched-in, the leaf debris would be deeper than the grass is tall.

 

[oldnslo]

I rake the leaves into piles then grab them with my homemade thumb type grapple and haul them off to dumping area. Getting older so trying to work smarter not harder plus it gives me more seat time.

 

[ultrarunner]

I also have an Echo PB-9010T backpack blower that will blow leaves into the next county. I can quickly blow leaves out of sheds, bushes, etc. then sweep them up.
We've come a long way from the 1950's when we raked them up with a wooden rake onto an old bedsheet. View attachment 4175859View attachment 4176403

May be going back to the rake?

Bans on this landscaping tool continue to spread across the US. See where.

Many cities and a few states are banning gas-powered leaf blowers due to pollution, noise and health risk concerns. They've gotten some unlikely help.

www.usatoday.com

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

May be going back to the rake?

Bans on this landscaping tool continue to spread across the US. See where.

Many cities and a few states are banning gas-powered leaf blowers due to pollution, noise and health risk concerns. They've gotten some unlikely help.

www.usatoday.com

Not me. I'll remove the muffler & use a lower oil/gas ratio making that baby SMOKE while I blow leaves with a fat cigar going!

 

[WinterDeere]

May be going back to the rake?

Bans on this landscaping tool continue to spread across the US. See where.

Many cities and a few states are banning gas-powered leaf blowers due to pollution, noise and health risk concerns. They've gotten some unlikely help.

www.usatoday.com

I can understand the complaints against 2-stroke handheld leaf blowers, but I hope these people are smart enough to distinguish between those and the larger 4-stroke walk-behind or tow-behind leaf blowers, for which no battery replacement is anywhere on the horizon.

 

[lman]

I just picked up another 1.5 cubic yards of walnuts this evening. Get a golf ball collector from a driving range, or a bag-a-nut harvester.

How much are buyers paying for walnuts in your area? We have walnut buyers here but I've never checked their prices. My walnut trees are in the woods and I've just been leaving them for the squirrels.

 

[WinterDeere]

How much are buyers paying for walnuts in your area? We have walnut buyers here but I've never checked their prices. My walnut trees are in the woods and I've just been leaving them for the squirrels.

I don’t know, but I’d be really surprised if it’s enough to make it worth the trouble. I just dump them along the eroding bank of our creek, to the tune of maybe a dozen pickup truck loads per year.

I do a lot of things that don’t make financial sense, like harvesting and splitting my own firewood, to save oil by heating my house with wood. My billable hour rate must be somewhere around 100x - 200x what I save while splitting firewood, but I justify it because I enjoy the process, it’s good exercise, and there are only so many hours I want to spend chasing dollars at my desk.

But unless there’s a crap-ton of money to made from something as miserable as handling walnuts, I don’t think I could justify the hours away from my desk to do it, given I’m self-employed and only make money when I’m working. And walnuts are a messy, wormy mess, by the time I pick them up each weekend. It’s hardly a pleasure!

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Growing up on the farm there were only 2 trees when Grandfather bought it...black walnuts. He was a physician in private practice and the elevator operator lady had vitiligo like this photo. My Grandfather gave her walnuts for the juice tannin and it worked well covering the splotches.

 

[gstrom99]

Not leaving mine, I'd be twisting an ankle just walking around the yard. I just finished vacuuming up my walnuts, takes two days. 10 tractor loader bucket fulls, onto the burn pile. Had to work on some that got mushed into the ground. No other method will work for me, since some are mushed, some kinda soft, others are hard like lemons. Some are bigger than the big shop vac tube(!).