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If you hear rustling in the oak trees, don’t look up. This is the season for acorn bombs, and you don’t want to get hit in the eye.
At least in my neighborhood, there are spots where you can barely see the sidewalk because of all the nuts.
We all know what’s coming next: leaves.
Here are 10 ways to deal with them:
1. Use your lawnmower to chop them up and blow them toward a line of bushes that edges the property.
This is composting light. Chopped-up leaves don’t blow around much, do break down easily into soil and look like mulch if you don’t look too closely.
2. Rake leaves into neat piles where you want flower beds next year and put tarps over them.
The leaves will break down some, but not a lot over the winter, which means they’ll kill the grass underneath and give you a clean fresh start on a spring bed.
You can actually use the leaves as mulch next year, but I’d suggest topping them with a thin layer of wood-chip mulch for beauty’s sake.
3. Put them in those biodegradable, brown-paper leaf bags for the city to pick up.
4. Pile them up on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and street. The city hasn’t started collecting yet, but it’s an easy and convenient method of making your yard look neat.
5. Don’t put all of those leaves in the street. Children like to play in piles, and cars use roads. That’s a recipe for tragedy. Besides, leaves can cause water to flood streets and can plug up stormwater pipes.
6. Don’t burn leaves. It’s against the law in most places.
7. Hire a few neighbor children to do the work.
8. Think of hand-raking as aerobic exercise. Put on some cheery tunes and get into the zone. Bribe your children into helping with the promise of hot chocolate and/or hot cider.
9. You could ignore the leaves. Prepare, however, for neighbors to glare.
10. Leaf blowers are excellent for gathering a whole bunch of leaves into manageable piles.
This Old House magazine recommends getting the most powerful leaf blower you can afford because you need a lot of oomph to “lift and move wet leaves.”
Please use ear protection because – small or large – these machines are really loud, like 800-pound mosquitoes.
Leaf blowers are not designed to move huge piles of leaves. Really. You don’t need to subject yourself and your neighbors to hours of whining. Blow those leaves onto a tarp and drag them where you want them.
And, for the love of all that is holy, don’t use that powerful machine to herd one leaf for an hour.
