Kitchen Garden Forum

I've been raking loads of leaves into piles and found that my light plastic snow shovel is ideal for transferring them into the wheelbarrow, for the compost heap. Yes, I've got a sucker/blower machine, but it's a fiddle to assemble and makes an unholy row for a Sunday morning
Incidentally, I discovered a couple of Blackcaps trapped in my fruit cage and released them, but I've never seen them in our garden before.

Morning John, now there's a trick i will be trying, thank you.

Glad you found the Blackcaps, and thinking about it, i bet they are very glad too!

There's quite a good gadget here: Alistair Campbell sweeps the leaves, then Keith Chegwin empties them into a bin. I do this with a dumpy bag or tarpaulin. I also find two thin boards good for picking up. I've also seen what is basically two snow shovels hinged together to make a giant grabber arrangement. Works well but it's something else to fork out for.

Hi JohnN,
Delighted to hear you think a leaf blower anti social for a Sunday morning. Our neighbours have a tennis court and they leaf blow all year fanatically, may be shouldn't have sited it near the bottom of their garden under the trees!
Personally I think blowrs should be banned and what is wrong with a rake/broom and barrow?

Sunday afternoon gripe over with - back to those beech leaves . ....

Hilary

I spent a couple of hours raking up leaves today and shoving them into bags to create leaf-mould. I have a plastic lawn rake and use a gloved hand to hold the contents against the rake. I never try to create a pile, then shovel them, I rake and bag, then rake aigain. This is on the allotment, so there are lots of small areas, if it was a lawn, I might treat things differently.

We don't have luxuries like a leaf blower...so it's all hands to the deck on an inclement day when other jobs won't go. Springbok, Chelwood 32 and Nottingham leaf rakes. Our new colleague extolled the virtue of those long handled grabs...so we made a purchase and they now save us bending to use the old boards with hand cut outs that we used to use...we can do it all from standing...'til we wear them out...as they seem to be in use for something everyday nearly.

Clive.

hilary wrote:Personally I think blowrs should be banned and what is wrong with a rake/broom and barrow?

I quite agree. Leaf blowers are up there with leaded petrol and CFCs as the modern world's most hateful invention. It's picking the leaves up, not necessarily gathering them together, that is onerous. But then none of it's particularly hard work, in my view — it's not as though they are heavy. I spent an autumn once gainfully employed sweeping leaves. I got quite a six pack. Those were the days.

Can I join the club ? As well as leafblowers, I'd like to add patio heaters to my list of planet wasting devices that should long since have been banned. If you are cold, wear a sweater. If you are still cold, go indoors ! Or warm yourself up by raking some leaves

Why do companies employed by local councils use a leafblower? It's probably in the tender document but how useless is that! I watched a 'blower guy' wooshing leaves into the hedgerow and the strong northerly was coming behind wooshing them back... waste of petrol all round. I even watched one trying the blower on wet leaves which resolutely stuck where they were whereas a broom or rake would have done the job.

MW

Because they "clear" the pavement after mowing and strimming.

No one removes mowings or strimmings from verges or general park spaces nowadays. Time consuming, expensive and needs carting away and disposal.

I've heard that in Canada each household is responsible for raking up all their garden leaves by a certain date and leaving them in big piles at the front of their houses where a large machine comes along and sucks them all up. They are taken to a composting site and all householders are then entitled to free leafmould. What a good idea.

MW

oh hell.

I use a leaf blower all the time and in different ways. I use it to clean my ride on mower and the other mowers together with blowing all the muck off the brush cutter head. in fact it's only this time of year I use it on leaves.

We only have one neighbour and I'm aware if they might find noisy machines disturbing but that is common courtesy .

My partner always tells me off for making a noise on Sunday, a lot of younger people don't worry about Sunday being a day we shouldn't do certain things.

To be honest, there isn't much I wouldn't do on a Sunday because I'm mostly alone in this garden of Eden.

Motherwoman wrote:They are taken to a composting site and all householders are then entitled to free leafmould. What a good idea.

A terrific idea. There was a time when councils would treat swept leaves as waste, and dump them in landfill. I think at least they are a bit more enlightened these days and take them to be composted. But it wouldn't hurt them to go the extra mile and take leaves from householders, too.

I would be interested to know how many of you use leafmould, and if you do, what your experiences of it are as a source of organic material. Me, I can't get enough of the stuff and welcome extra leaves for my pile from whoever has any. I'm always sure to leave the pile for two years, after which time it has turned to something close to peat in texture and appearance.

FelixLeiter wrote:I would be interested to know how many of you use leafmould, and if you do, what your experiences of it are

In my case I haven't used leaf mould, my neighbour collects leaves and plastic bags them. Presumably I ought to be investigating their pile of plastic bags some of which must be full of slime because they also plastic bag their grass cuttings.

What I have been doing recently is going to the beach for sea weed and topping my compost bins up. Lot's of bladderwrack in the harbour and it's very easy to collect.