Last fall, I shredded all the leaves I gathered to use as mulch around my fruits and also my vegetable garden. Finding out quickly how quickly it runs out - it won’t be NEARLY enough unless I start sniping leaves from my neighbors! I only have 5 large trees and 3 are maples (which break down really fast and don’t last long as mulch).
What do you all use?
I also steal leaves from neighbors.
It is indeed a short lived mulch if you shred them.
Unshredded leaves can be useful in sheet mulching where you want to kill off weeds or grass. I’ve done this in some areas.
Around trees I just use free wood chips from tree services.
Shredded leaves is a mulch trees like. But it may not do some other things folks use mulch for.
How do you shred your leaves? I have way too much oak leaves every fall and they’re largely still intact next spring despite piling them several feet deep and letting water penetrate. Shredding would be better but I’ve put off buying a shredder since a good one is a big commitment of money and space. I tried mulching setting on my lawn mower but the capacity is too low and sizing too uneven.
I do use the leaves as is to mulch brambles. Works great for weed suppression and disappears by midsummer.
In my veggie garden i use a stirrup hoe.
The only thing i mulch there is my row of tomatoes and i use old hay (that protected my fig over winter).
One (the only?) benefit of the hackberry trees surrounding me is the fallen leaves tend to curl, so they don’t form mats like oak, maple, etc.
they also break down quickly.
When they are dry, ride over them with mower several times without pick them up. The volume will be reduced to about 1/5 or more. To move them after shredding add the bag or bin to the mower to pick them up.
Ah, that’s what my little electric mower manages. It’s just so slow to do only about 1.5 cubic feet at a time when picking up about 30 cubic yards of leaves every winter.
I did cut down about half of my trees this February and will be lawn free by May (slowly sheet mulching the rest of my lawn) so hopefully it’ll be a little less painful in the future.
I actually bought a chipper shredder for it.
I used to have one of these that worked quite well. Not sure about these models, mine may have been powered by a 2-stroke gas motor. The Sun Joe model is pretty cheap.
If I have to find space for one of these things (which will probably mean getting rid of my rarely used giant snow blower), I would definitely prefer a chipper shredder. Any recommendations on brands and what to look for?
But back to mulching. Assuming you haven’t done so, it’s worth checking with your municipality to see if they offer free or heavily discounted tanbark or compost for residents. This seems ubiquitous in my region and is nicer and more predictable than whatever chips my tree cutters/arborists leave me, which is always full of sticks and dirt.
In addition to leaves, I collect each year as many bark chips as I can and stockpile them in an are of my yard where nothing grows. As the bank chip pile breaks down the bottom layer In anaerobic conditions forms humus which is better than compost for mulching. By turning it over and adding new chips each winter I get some of the best acidic humus that nature can offer.
Dennis
Kent, wa
I’m a fan of leaves. I compost them with “man made” urea. I also find it helps to run them over with a bagging mower to shred them first.
The only downside is the leaves get blow away by wind, as compared to wood chips.
Some leaf blowers function as a vacuum and mulcher that can dump the leaf bits into a bag. It is slow but one of the cheap ways and easier to collect the leaves than raking them all up. Ours has an attachment for sucking things out of the gutters without needing a ladder to reach.
Freestanding leaf mulchers are good for concentrated amounts of bigger leaves. Since they are for softer material and not wood chippers they are relatively inexpensive and lightweight. You just need somewhere it can have power and easy access, collect leaves, dump them into the top, and mulched ones come out the bottom where they can go straight into a transport container.
I used to have a Brush Bandit chipper and it takes a lot more power to chip wood than shred leaves, which can be done with an inverted weed-whacker. Such machines also tend to require a lot of maintenance compared to a leaf shredder. I have 3 acres of rough land where I can hide many piles of bundled brush and access to as many truck loads of arborist chips I need for my nursery, orchard and gardening needs.
Anyway, I’ve not been impressed by the efficiency of home-owner shredders having gotten used to a professional machine with hydraulic feed, but they have little in common with leaf shredders. I’m not an expert on power equipment, but it seems to me that If a machine is made to shred wood it is way overpowered to shred leaves. Like using a shovel instead of a spoon to eat lunch.
Maybe there are now really good electric powered wood chippers, but the gas ones are very loud- even the small ones. If they don’t have enough power to quickly go through at least 4" diameter wood I would never bother with one.
Have you tried eating the fruit? It’s EXCELLENT. The secret is to eat the whole thing. The fruity sweet pericarp is tasty but so thin, that you’d think it was not worth your effort. The seed is highly nutritious and tasty, and together with the sweet pericarp, it’s tasty and satisfying. They are a very high quality source of nutrients, and are shelf stable with no preservation of any kind. The shell is hard, but usually crunchable. Some are quite thin. The thicker ones can be smashed with a pestle and the whole works made into fruit leather.
I’m a big fan. The bark is so amazing too. I’d lie to have some around just to look at. I’ve been looking for a source of seeds or perhaps suckers of Celtis tenuifolia- the dwarf hackberry- partly because I don’t have much room for 60’ + canopy trees, and partly because I’m on upland soils. The common occidentalis seems confined to floodplains, at least in this neck of the woods
Alan, thanks so much for the information. It’s what I was afraid of, but it sounds like burning or building berms with the branches I have are better solutions given the quantities that I am dealing with. I guess I will continue to use my electric mower on mulch setting and maybe get another vacuum blower. They’re underpowered and slow but at least electric and can take in leaves directly and convert to mulch.
The previous electric vacuum blower died on me after 5 years and constantly stalled from wetness or small sticks or large concentration of sycamore leaves (finally cut that culprit down). On the otherhand, it was less than$200 and required no maintenance and little room. I liked that it picked up leaves in corners where my current blower just blows around and around. It was rough on my back to use it for hours in the fall though, the current blower is way lighter.
Here we only use rakes, but I only do one spring cleanup. And a gas mower. After that everything lays where it falls- leaves or grass. Somehow, with my semi-wild landscape, it works, and clients that come here usually comment on the beauty of my landscape and suggest they feel like they are in Sonoma or France.
Of course, I always have the place nicely picked up before such guests arrive.
I haven’t tried eating them but I’m aware they are edible. Of course the birds adore them (and poop them all over everything).
The fallen berries stick to my driveway and walkway. The soot and sap in the fall turn everything black and sticky.
They are very weak trees, the first to blow over in a storm.
As you mentioned height - the berries are out of reach.
Of course, I’m not dumping on your post. Just venting some hackberry frustration 
Celtis occidentalis likes at least 6.5 or higher pH…and it’s not very tasty but I suppose could be survival food. Better than the ubiquitous honeysuckle.
Some species perhaps taste better.