100+ bags of leaves this fall

I know it's a little late past leaf season but I finally got this video up and thought I'd share. I've had some people ask me about how I am strategic about getting tons and tons of bagged leaves so I made a video for it with my strategy and of course best practices/etiquette of leaf banditry... around here I can't get wood chips even if I offer to bribe with cookies and/or cashola, so this is really the only way for me to get lots and lots of good usable mulch (especially since I don't have a truck).

Good video! Thanks for sharing! I do the same thing but because no one puts them out on the curb here I use a site called Nextdoor. It is a social media site where people have to confirm their address. I post a request for leaves on there that goes out to people in my general area. It works great - last year I got around 100 bags and this year I'm at 200 to 300 bags. I had to pick most of them up but some were even delivered :)

Great tips! I thought the etiquette part was helpful too, it's nice for everyone when it's a win win situation and people are thoughtful and respectful of each other's properties. I just got a trailer load full of leaves this past weekend and am looking forward to having some great mulch for my perenials! Enjoyed the video!

Cool!  I’m at 215 bags this year.  Trash morning curb action.

I have the opposite problem. No need for bags. Used enormous leaf piles instead. Spent a solid two weeks raking & leaf blowing & still want to get a few more before winter hits hard. Lots of soil to build. Leaves are an excellent start. Stay calm & compost on.

I do this too! In addition to the weekend timing for good “harvesting” it’s good to know a town’s yard waste collection schedule, since many folks rush to make the deadline. The city next door where I go for leaves has pickups every two weeks, so even some weekends are better than others... and some people don’t want the paper leaf bags getting wet and messy between collecting days.

In our town, folks bring leaves to the transfer station. It’s a big job. Six years ago, i got a commercial leaf vacuum and duming trailer that I setup for leaf collection each fall. (After an injury cleaning up our leaves) Each of the 8 houses in our tiny neighborhood has 6-10 cubic yards of shredded leaves! The neighbors each make a pile for me to come collect, and are grateful to not make 15 trips to the transfer station in their cars!

I have also collected some leaves for $$$, not many since I don’t have much time for it. It’s the same deal where they do the raking into a pile, and I come get it. Just this removal can be decent money, and around here, folks pay WAY more for a landscaper to do a fall cleanup!

I'm more in the situation that Mike Barkley is in. I have acres of leaf fall, some I deal with, lots just stays where it falls, especially on my south slope down the mountain, there are some items I grow that depend on those leaves being there.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:I'm more in the situation that Mike Barkley is in. I have acres of leaf fall, some I deal with, lots just stays where it falls, especially on my south slope down the mountain, there are some items I grow that depend on those leaves being there.

Yeah that's the sort of situation where it would almost warrant some kind of creative setup to collect (and maybe even shred) the leaves en masse so you can put them where you want them. I don't have that issue since no deciduous trees, but I may be moving to MO eventually and if I do, I'll be trading my fir and pine for deciduous and will probably have the same (happy) problem.

Shredded = mowed. That's exactly the plan for other leaves that fell since raking. In the yard only. After the rains quit. All the others will remain where they fall. I wish someone would have been doing this for the past 100 years here. The soil would be much better now. We have a heavily wooded giant bowl shaped hole in a zone 5 area. The thick layer of almost-soil down inside there is wonderful. Many logs & large branches in all stages of decomposition too. I will remove & use a small percentage of that to help jump start the rest.

It IS a nice problem to have.

We live in a small village where everyone has to bring their bagged leaves to the local fire department backyard.  We are able to quickly gather about 300 bags of leaves this way.  It took three trips of about 100 bags in our trailer.


Collecting bagged leaves this way is easy.

I would suggest finding-out if the trees had been treated with a Bayer product (neo-insecticide), before getting the leaves, if at all possible.