Rear Finish Mower Mullching Leaves

[tploucks]

OK. Winter is finally setting in up here in VT. I've got a lot of lawn - 3 acres - so I keep the grass pretty high. Half of that has a lot of large, mature trees and I have a lot of leaves that build up. Noticed last year that when the grass is high, the leaves tend to get gummed up which doesn't look so great and makes spring cleanup a challenge. Decided this year to wait until most of the leaves are down. (****! Those big oaks are stubborn!) Dropped my finish mower down nice and low today, and started mowing. Noticed pretty quickly that the leaves wouldn't go under the mower while going forward. However, my Frontier GM1072 is rear discharge with the chains, so I tried backing up. It did a great job! Two problems. 1. My neck hurts. 2. 3pt hitch clearly isn't made to push. Broke the cotter pin on the iMatch due to excessive side load. Any recommendations on an easier way get the same result without the neck strain?

 

[2458n]

Got some property in town of Defiance Ohio. 100 to 150 year old oak trees. White, red, black, and pin oak. Few hickory, maple and others. Bunch of leaves. Laws enforced about raking etc. Flail mower has saved me from these fines. 5ft. Ford. Mow and mow some more. Stihl backpack blower for herding out to street for city to pick up. Bought a street vac powered by a old 6cyl. ford tractor motor. It will suck up a good sized pumpkin. Used one time in town and it emits to much noise and dust. Could not argue that point.

 

[Streetcar]

First mow grass lower before leaves fall.
Second make multiple passes over the leaves.
At previous house I had numerous sycamore, my initial mowing of leaves was the highest setting on my riding mower. I made multiple passes over leaves lowering deck between passes

 

[jaxs]

If you are trying to say the mower is pushing leaves ahead instead of letting them pass under the deck,raise deck on first pass then go back for a second pass. To conserve time,you can drive fast on first pass but drive s-l-o-w on second pass. As Streetcar said,next year mow grass before leaves fall and things will go much better.

 

[DJ54]

If you have 4 gauge wheels, adjust the top link out so that you can pick the front up enough to let the leaves pass under the front, but yet, the rear wheels are on the ground. I do this when clipping the horse pasture, in mid summer, clipping off weeds they don't eat, but yet doesn't mow the grass off close.

 

[KennK]

First mow grass lower before leaves fall.
Second make multiple passes over the leaves.
At previous house I had numerous sycamore, my initial mowing of leaves was the highest setting on my riding mower. I made multiple passes over leaves lowering deck between passes

Excellent point that you need to mow the grass lower before trying to mulch leaves. This fall I made the mistake of letting the grass grow kind of out of control before I mowed the leaves. What a mess. Excellent point indeed!!

I basically just do loops around the trees with fallen leaves. I mow inwards toward the trunk until the mower output just touches the trunk, then I reverse direction and mow outwards. I repeat this process until the leaves are mulched enough.

If the leaves are deep I'll sometimes do some random passes to try to reduce the depth first, but if you wait too long the leaves will bunch up in front of my the mower deck and under the mower engine - which if you're not careful could result in the leaves catching fire - so be careful. You are best to hit the leaves before they get too deep and just repeat the process every few days until all the leaves are down.

I wondered if the mulching was somehow not good for the grass, but from what I read online it is actually good for it. So I mulch away.

 

[newbury]

Definitely give the lawn a "winter cut" at the BEGINNING of leaf fall.
On my lawn I'm never sure when leaf fall will be and I generally mow at the highest setting. Then when the leaves START to fall I get out there and cut it shorter (or I get my son to do it ).
This year it took about 3 weeks from start of leaf fall to about the end and the weather was dry. Then I just set the mower back UP to the highest setting, mowed and bagged. Some years I feel I need to make an intermediate mowing if a long period of wet weather is forecast. Result was that very little grass clippings, mostly leaves.

During the summer I mulch the grass in place.
I used to mulch the leaves in place but SWMBO complained about all the chopped up leaf litter coming into the house. It seems the grass clippings dry quickly and don't get dragged into the house.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I don't have mulching attachment for my mower but by just making a couple of circles around the tree first in counter-clockwise to throw the leaves from around the trunk outward. Then going to the furthest outside circle to get most of the leaves, I start circling clockwise, recutting the previous circle till I reach the first clumping. If the leave aren't shredded fine enough, I repeat the process once more. By then the leave litter is so fine that it settles down in the grass so as to become invisible.

For large leaves like Sycamore, raise the deck up high on the first passes so they don't slide along in front of the mower then reduce the height on second pass. With high lift blades, you don't need to be right on the ground to mulch the leaves. I find that my mower does great at the 3" setting.

I don't have enough leaves to justify a big yard vac/mulcher so my mower works great and no raking needed.

 

[MossRoad]

OK. Winter is finally setting in up here in VT. I've got a lot of lawn - 3 acres - so I keep the grass pretty high. Half of that has a lot of large, mature trees and I have a lot of leaves that build up. Noticed last year that when the grass is high, the leaves tend to get gummed up which doesn't look so great and makes spring cleanup a challenge. Decided this year to wait until most of the leaves are down. (****! Those big oaks are stubborn!) Dropped my finish mower down nice and low today, and started mowing. Noticed pretty quickly that the leaves wouldn't go under the mower while going forward. However, my Frontier GM1072 is rear discharge with the chains, so I tried backing up. It did a great job! Two problems. 1. My neck hurts. 2. 3pt hitch clearly isn't made to push. Broke the cotter pin on the iMatch due to excessive side load. Any recommendations on an easier way get the same result without the neck strain?

Welcome to TBN! :thumbsup:

I have a rear discharge mower, that is mounted on my FEL arms. So I can see the leaf buildup in front of the deck that you mention.

As others have mentioned, next year, as soon as the leaves start to fall, lower your deck and mow the grass shorter in prep for the leaves.

As to this year, again, as others have mentioned, raise your deck as high as you can and make a pass over the leaves, then drop it down and make more passes.

One of the things I don't like about rear discharge is that you can't widrow leaves or grass...

On the other hand, one of the things I like about the rear discharge is that it does NOT leave a windrow! :laughing:

Can't have your cake and eat it too. :licking:

If there are a lot of leaves, and I don't want to leave them on the lawn, I tow a lawn sweeper cart behind me and pick up most of the mulched leaves and dump them in my composting area. Then as fall progresses, I'll just chop up any stragglers and leave them on the lawn.

 

[Gary Fowler]

A rear discharge mower would be the cats eye for leave mulching. Just run the mower over it while pulling a lawn sweeper behind to pick up the shreddings. I don't use my lawnsweeper to pick up leaves because it gets full too quickly. Once over with the mower should reduce them well enough so the sweeper will hold much more.

 

[RSKY]

Mowed our leaves twice using Gator blades and they mulched nicely. Then we got home Thursday and our neighbor was in our yard on his Bad Boy vacuuming up our leaves with his DR pull behind unit. He dumped them in the back yard and I will burn them next spring.

It is very nice to have good neighbors.

And he is returning the favor of me tilling his garden every spring and clearing his driveway every snowfall.

RSKY

 

[MossRoad]

A rear discharge mower would be the cats eye for leave mulching. Just run the mower over it while pulling a lawn sweeper behind to pick up the shreddings. I don't use my lawnsweeper to pick up leaves because it gets full too quickly. Once over with the mower should reduce them well enough so the sweeper will hold much more.

Yep! Works really well. I had the same issue with it filling up with unmulched leaves. I could go about 15 feet before it would be full. With the mower running, I can go a couple hundred feet.

Works great to gather grass clippings if I want some for the garden, too. :thumbsup:

 

[TMGT]

There's no way I could mulch with the amount of leaves we get, just finished my customers larger property and if I hadn't collected it probably would have raised the ground level an inch.
We also have acidic soil and with a lot of oaks it ends up being bad for the grass and requires more lime to compensate for it.

This is my leaf arsenal, the vac behind the Wheel Horse I originally built over 7 years ago. Both mowers run 60in decks with gator blades, the Hustler is good but fills up too quick, the WH is my heavy hitter.