Call Toro and ask. You can mow the leaves without the mulching kit. It will take a few passes to shred them into small bits.

Here is a link that might be useful: Toro customer service

Thanks Becky. I have almost 1.5 acres, so a few passes isn't really feasible! Want to mulch the grass when I mow the grass as well.

I don't think it is possible to fully mulch leaves of any quantity in just one pass even with a mulching blade. I have one of the new Honda mowers with a double mulching blade. Even that doesn't get everything on one pass. It does take in a lot, but on heavier accumulations it kind of needs another pass.

I guess you just have to try and see.

Really, people think you need to reduce the leaves to pinky-sized bits for them to decay. You don't, pretty large pieces will go fairly quickly, particularly if you have lots of worms.

Why? Worms like to pull leaves down into their burrows and nibble on them. It's a worm thing.

If you look across the lawn and don't think, "There are a lot of leaves on the lawn," then you're fine.

It's certainly nice if you can get them to tiny bits, but that could take five passes with a standard powered mower and a large load of leaves. I've done it, but only because I was dropping eight to ten inch layers at a time that I had scavenged in dark of night and needed to get the whole layer in all at once before The Man caught up with me.

Well, I have a lot of faith in Mother Nature, and I'm not neurotic about having a perfect lawn. My place is not manicured at all. It was part of an old dairy farm. But I DO really like to use natural resources where I can, and if mulching leaves gives the grass areas food, that's what I want to do.

If I have to do a couple of passes, I can do that. Thanks everyone. I'll give Toro a call today and see what they have/recommend. What would be cool would be a mulching kit where you have some kind of a chute attached to your mower, like a snow chute on a snowblower, so that the mulched leaves actually get scattered nicely.

Hmmmmâ¦What if you took a snowblower to the leaves!

Tibbrix, you are the man! I mow my half acre lawn with a 52" zero turn and it takes about 20 minutes without any leaves. Can't imagine doing triple that with a walk behind.

I don't use a mulching kit on my mower and with heavy leaves on the lawn it takes 3 passes to get them chewed up. First pass goes really slow trying to get everything chopped up and the second two passes go much quicker reducing them to small pieces so they will drop down into the turf. The amazing thing is that afterwards you can barely tell there were any leaves on the lawn.

Forshee, actually, I am the woman! Lol.

I called my Toro dealer this morning and the guy told me that my mower has a mulching blade on it! I guess I'm ready to go.

As of right now, I do have my summer mowing guy coming to mulch the leaves in the larger "field" on my property, and I'll do the smaller areas up around the house with my Toro. Leaves are harder to do the entire property with my Toro because it's so weather dependent. I'd need a really good stretch of totally dry weather in order to do it all myself, including three passes, which would take me about a week to get the whole thing done. I do enjoy mowing it myself when I can. I rent my house out, though, in the summer, so I don't have the time on turnover days to mow.

At any rate, I really like the idea of using what nature provides, if I can. I also just loathe raking and hauling tarps of leaves. I bought a little Stihl "leaf blower for girls" last year, and I LOVE that tool! But oh, I don't like raking!

>>But oh, I don't like raking!

You 'n' me both. I haven't raked a leaf in...more than fourteen years at this point. They all get chewed in.

Again, I stress that complete and utter powdering of the leaf certainly isn't required. Three passes? One or two should really do it. The few remaining leaves up top can wait for next time, or blow off somewhere on their own.

Maybe, if you left it sit and got a lot of build-up, three passes might be necessary, but that's only once or twice a season during the heaviest leaf fall period.

You could also use your blower to migrate leaves from the heaviest buildup areas to ones that don't have any, then mow. That way, you spread around the golden brown goodness. I send plumes of leaves from the dead air sections out onto the lawn, then mow.

Oh, that is a great suggestion, to use my leaf-blower-for-girls to spread the leaves out before going over them. Thanks!

"Forshee, actually, I am the woman! Lol. "

Yes you are! Sorry about that, guess I just assumed and it got me in trouble again.

"Three passes? One or two should really do it. "

As usual you are right but it takes me 3 passes to get the lawn looking neat and clean again. Kind of funny because this past Saturday within 30 minutes of mulching leaves and getting it all neat looking it was nearly covered again.

>>As usual you are right but it takes me 3 passes to get the lawn looking neat and clean again. Kind of funny because this past Saturday within 30 minutes of mulching leaves and getting it all neat looking it was nearly covered again.

No biggie, if you want the lawn to look tabletop-perfect and not a scrap of leaf showing, three passes it is.

There's no reason you can't do more work than required if you want to, I just don't want folks who are on the edge about deciding to do this to think it's necessary.

Forshee, the whole leaf thing does have a Sisyphus kind of thing to it, doesn't it? So does the whole grass thingâ¦and weed thingâ¦

Never gonna get that rock to the top of the mountain!

Never thought of it that way but that is the perfect analogy.

I use the leaf blower to put most of the leaves in the flower beds, the rest of the leaves I mow into the lawn.

I mow so the cuttings are blown into the uncut grass. (I always mow this way even when there is no leaves) In this way by the time you are finished most of the leaves have been cut over many times and any left have all been broken up.

I then run the mower over the areas of the yard where the cuttings are the heaviest. Usually a strip near where I made the last mowing passes across the lawn.

I use the leave blower to disperse any remaining areas of visible mulch across the lawn .

This post was edited by knuttle on Thu, Nov 13, 14 at 21:24

Such great tips! You guys are awesome! Thank you!

Update: I took my Toro for a first spin of leaf mulching today, and whoa! It chewed them right up on only ONE pass! Loving this a heck of a lot more than blowing ,raking, and hauling! And I suspect my grass will like it better too. Yummy winter for it this year!

Thanks again, everyone.

Congrats, Tibbtrix! I usually manage in one pass myself.

And yes, it saves time, effort, annoyance, resources, money, AND it's the best thing you can do for your soil. There's no down-side here.

And it's great exercise!

I mulched in a ton of leaves today myself but I'm a bit of a pansy compared to you since I did it all with the rider. Not much exercise when you're sitting on a seat!

Forshee, so long as you didn't go to the gym afterward for a workout! Lol.

Have you, and morpheusâ¦or anyone else hereâ¦been mulching your leaves into your lawns all along? I know they decompose over the winter, but does it really make a difference as far as the health of the grass?

I walk my dogs 2 miles every morning so I consider that my exercise.

I've been mulching leaves for a long time now and it definitely helps the soil. It's not going to magically convert a field of weeds into a beautiful lawn but it does add organic matter to the soil which helps the health of the lawn. This has been my first year using organics and to be honest I have been completely amazed at how well it has worked. This year I've put out rabbit pellets and milorganite twice each along with used coffee grounds I get from a local coffee shop. My worm population has gone crazy! For years I was using the Scott's program and didn't realize the damage I was doing to the soil. I know Morpheus has been doing this a long time and reading his posts as well as dchall converted me to organics.

>>Have you, and morpheusâ¦or anyone else hereâ¦been mulching your leaves into your lawns all along?

Years. More than a decade now, actually.

Like ForsheeMS said, it's not a miracle cure. But it does help the organic matter levels, general lawn health overall, and winter performance on the lawn...but it can take a year or two to build enough for those to become apparent.

Combined with a good organic feeding program, proper watering, and proper mowing, it can turn a fair lawn into a great one. But you may still have to reseed or overseed to fill holes in some lawns.

I refuse to use fertilizer and I never have. Again, I have huge faith in Mother Nature. My property was part of a huge dairy farm in 1880, so it's older land and even has hay mixed with all the other species of green things growing around here. I'm definitely not going for the manicured suburban look! More interested in keeping soil healthy and no longer picking leaves up and hauling them into the woods. Bummer thing is that it's pretty lumpy from so many winters.

If you have clover, you may not need to fertilize much, if at all, given the mix of species. Kentucky bluegrass won't flourish (it's a heavy feeder), but most other lawn species will do OK.

All my mowers have a chute to spit out grass clippings, or attach a bag/catcher. (??) Depends on the direction of the mow to chop things or just blow them away.

I mulched leaves into the lawn today, but there just hasn't been a huge supply available as many of my neighbors have a landscape service that vacuums them up. I was thinking about stealing some bags along the street, but then I got to wondering how much a bag of leaves really contributes to lawn health. For instance, how much organic material will a typical bag of leaves contribute compared to say a bag of milorganite? I'd like to add lots of leaves, but I don't have a vehicle (ie, a pickup) that would make it easy to get lots of bags.

As far as organic matter is concerned, leaves are unmatched. They're free, and have a high transfer to humic material (with the consequence that decay is comparatively slow).

So pound for pound, leaves kick Milo's butt in terms of OM.

Feeding? Leaves are zip. Milo kicks leaves' butts in terms of feeding.

Leaves are a nice thing to add and, if you're severely short on OM, a cheap way of raising it by stealing...er, borrowing in dark of night...as many as you can stuff into your car.

They have some short and medium term advantages to the winter lawn as well, but nothing extreme that you can't live without.

So if inconvenient, I'd say work with what you can and do get. If there are bags across the street, I'd steal them at darkfall. If not, I wouldn't go driving around looking.

Would people really care if you stole their bags of leaves?

even if you don't steal them to use them on your lawn, leaves are great for flower beds. That I do know! I never clean them out of anything that doesn't have grass, i.e.: under trees, flower beds, etc. In the spring, I churn them into the soil where I plant annuals (along with the carcasses of the plants from the prior year.

I have to say, when I bought this place three years ago, the soil where i plant the impatiens seemed dead, almost toxic. I had a terrible time getting impatiens to grow. Those that didn't die, were paltry at best. I began, that fall, the leaf thing and churning them into the soil in the spring and have done it every year. You should have seen my impatiens this year! HUGE, robust, gorgeous! I have wondered if it was my helping the soil. Prior owner had terrible ground cover int that spot, so I don't think that soil was ever tended to.

Thanks morph. I was surprised to hear you say how great leaves are! I just did a bit of reading up on exactly what humus is. There seems to be a lot of confusion about it! I found some excellent definitions on gardenweb of all places and I understand better. Humus is the stable portion of decayed organic material that is itself devoid of much nutritive value, but provides good soil structure and can store added nutrients for use as needed by plants. Hopefully that summary is accurate.

So when you say leaves are great OM for an OM depleted soil, you are talking specifically about the structure ("sponginess"?) of the soil that humus (and not necessarily milorganite) provide, right?

Is it possible to quantify the amount of leaves that it takes to amend a soil? For instance, my backyard is in the 3.5% range of OM. If one bag of dry leaves weighs 10 lbs, is there a way to calculate how many bags you need to increase the OM to, say 5%? It seems like there should be a straightforward way to do that. Like 10 lbs leaves give you 3 lbs humus in the top 1" of soil... and then do the math knowing the weight of the soil.

OR, does it not work that way like everything else in lawn science?? :o)

>>You should have seen my impatiens this year! HUGE, robust, gorgeous! I have wondered if it was my helping the soil. Prior owner had terrible ground cover int that spot, so I don't think that soil was ever tended to.

Since the organic matter helps with water retention, and Impatiens are water-hogs...

Impatiens seem to be on again, off again year by year. This year, mine were kind of off.

>>OR, does it not work that way like everything else in lawn science?? :o)

Not that simple. :-) Even late stage matter decays, eventually turning back into carbon dioxide and water from whence it came.

Plus when you add it, root and plant growth is enhanced, amplifying the ultimate impact on the soil. Worms move in. Bacteria and fungi flourish. Each adds to the mass.

Or you can plow it or aerate it, add oxygen, and burn it off faster. Or remove every leaf and bit of greenery from the surface and not replace it, burning it off more slowly.

Which direction things go is more or less up to you (and your natural soil profile). It's hard to get high OM on sandy soils due to the oxygen levels, and very easy to get them in heavy clays (where they tend to become a muck soil).

should I have any concern about mulching leaves when the weather is already so cold? Around my parts in northern New Jersey we are already at 30 degree highs.

Naw, go right ahead. We're going to rebound anyway, but even if not they'd just slowly decay over winter and finish up in spring.

okay good. I just scored 8 bags from my neighbor down the street. Lol

Do you hear sirens yet? :)

Regarding sirens, funny you should ask! I found a street around the corner with lots of leaf bags. I can only get 6 in my car at a time, so on my 3rd trip I pull up to the house and the house across the street has an alarm going off. So a neighbor comes out to see what's going on, the squad car pulls up and a cop gets out to investigate, and there I am stuffing bags into my car! Kind of funny. The homeowners of the leaf bag house must've seen me because when I went back for my last trip they had left a plastic bag full of branches where the leaf bags were. Sadly, I do not need a bag of branches. :)

As far as leaf quantity, here's where I am at: I mulched in random leaves last week, with more falling for this weekend. In addition I'll be adding let's say 45 imported leaf bags. If I have 9000 sf of lawn, then I'm averaging 1 bag covering 200 sf. I spread one bag out tonight and it seemed to cover a pretty good area, maybe 10 by 10 with decent thickness.

Am I making a dent with quantities like this? I know you said you added 8" of ground leaf mulch at one time. I'm figuring that my soil is capable of assimilating whatever leaves I put on it after a year of "morph"-izing the soil. I know I have worms the size of garden snakes that I've never seen before!

>>Am I making a dent with quantities like this? I know you said you added 8" of ground leaf mulch at one time. I'm figuring that my soil is capable of assimilating whatever leaves I put on it after a year of "morph"-izing the soil. I know I have worms the size of garden snakes that I've never seen before!

45 over 9,000 square feet is a definite dent. My top flight year was 100 (and a bit more) bags over 10,000 square feet, and that was a lot of effort.

It'll take about two years for the OM to show in your test (it does not filter down quickly).

However, your garden-snake worms will love it. And yes, they're a joy when they get so big you can actually see the anchoring hairs flex on their bodies. Fortunately, they never attack.

So far.

daniel, I'd worry less about neighbors calling the police on you for stealing their leaves (why would they care who hauls them away) and worry a lot more about them calling the men in white suits upon seeing you putting leaves ON your lawn! Lol.

morpheus, another question: I save the ashes from my fireplace and charcoal grill. I know it's good for some garden beds. If spread thinly, is it also good for grass and hay because of its carbon content?

>>morpheus, another question: I save the ashes from my fireplace and charcoal grill. I know it's good for some garden beds. If spread thinly, is it also good for grass and hay because of its carbon content?

It's actually not good for garden beds of any stripe or grass or hay.

While thin layers aren't going to do much harm, the stuff is very highly alkaline, plus every remaining metal is concentrated to much higher levels than the original wood.

Most of us consider the stuff as dicardable on land if you don't overdo it, we also don't consider it a good thing to be using.

Thanks. I'll just toss it at the dump then.

Tibbrix: of course you are right that nobody cares about their leaves at the curb.

I am still amazed at the lack of interest people seem to have on the subject mulching leaves into the lawn. My neighbor has blown his leaves to the front of his property so that over the weekend he can blow them onto my yard so I can mulch them. It doesn't occur to him that it would be easier just to mulch them into his lawn.So either he thinks I am wrong about what I am doing, or he thinks it is easier to blow the leaves away, or he just doesn't want to have leaves mulched into his lawn for aesthetics. Or maybe it is an ego thing. I guess there could be many reasons but it seems like when the guy who has the best lawn in the neighborhood (thanks to morpheus) is doing something you might be curious as to why.

Life lesson: most people don't care about their lawns and don't have gardens because they don't want to maintain them.

Yes, it would be easier, but he may feel he's helping you out. Or he may just not want to bother mulching (which does take a bit of attention, if not much extra effort).

Or he may think you're insane and is trying to placate you so you don't turn him into garden mulch.

Steamy, high-nitrogen garden mulch... But I digress.

Maybe he doesn't want all the nutrients and an awesome yard! lol

maybe because he thinks he will have to water more because of healthy growth? Wants it to be strawish and dormant all year? lol :-)

This leaf mulching topic just has me purplexed! I will take a quick mow every 3-5days anytime (even through grass might not needed it) to mulch leaves - over having to rake ANY day!

But i guess so does the bagging grass thing... but that i understand to some extent - people want to extend mowing intervals - if they wait to long they get crazy clumps (especially because they mow at 9am...).

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This post was edited by danielj_2009 on Thu, Nov 20, 14 at 17:01

I never use the grass catcher bag. I'm too lazy. Really, being female I don't have a whole lot of upper body strength, so it's just a pain to constantly be taking that full bag off and carrying it across the yard to the woodsâ¦ugh. Besides, the bags they make for the walk-behind mowers now are tiny. Not at all worth the effort.