danmdevries wrote:Finally ordered the mulching kit for my mower. When I first bought the mower the kit was almost $400 so I didn't buy one. Now it's $125 straight from Cub Cadet. Leaf mowing works so much better without side discharge.
When I did lawn work at my house, I'd blow the leaves as winter cover into the garden and flower beds and stuff. The rest would get mulched up and shredded by the mower for the lawn. In the spring, I'd rake off the leaf cover from the flower beds and pitchfork the leaf cover in the garden soil for organic matter. I rarely raked most of the leaves. Just ran them over and let the mower chop them up for compost organic matter.
Easier on the back and better for the plants and the soil (lazy man's justification of dealing with the fallen leaves).
A neighbor of mine was adamant on raking them by hand and adamant on how his lawn was mowed (he had a certain pattern he did). I started to help him one year but he was set in his ways. The leaves had to be raked in a certain way, lawn had to be mowed in a certain way. After a few weeks of tying to help, I punted. Can't teach an old dog new tricks and I respected his way of doing his lawn. He was anal on many things but also one of the nicest people you've ever met. Maybe spending time on doing his lawn his way was relaxing therapy even though it was excessively (in my opinion) time consuming and labor intensive.
He did have a nice lawn and he took pride in it so who am I to judge?