to big or not to big?

[PRECISION LC]

i am a single man crew, and one of my customers asked me to clean up her yard. in her back yard she has a tree area that is probally 20 ft. wide and 80 ft. long. i moved all the leaves against the back fence to it would be in a pile for easy tarp loading. but when i moved them all back i didn't realize that it was about about 1 1/2 ft. deep and 2 ft. wide pile of leaves all the way down the fence. it is too much to fit in my truck and on my trailer. i know i could make a coupel trips to dump but it is a 30 mile round trip route. so i am asking what shall i do?
thanks
kyle:blob2:

[Runner]

What are you cutting with? Chop it all up, spread it, and keep going over it, spreading it out. Then, pick up the small remainder of it. Just dust.;)

[PRECISION LC]

i have tosed the idea around of spreading it back out and sucking it up with my walker ghs. but it has a bark mulch floor covering.

[PaulJ]

Now that you have the leaves all in a windrow. start driving over it with your mower. If you have a walk behind, push down on the handles to hold the front up so it doesn't plow as much. I do this over areas with leaves, and just keep going back and forth GRIND-GRIND-GRIND....DUST-DUST. Reduce your volume of leaves until it looks like a managable amount and your mower bag won't fill up right away. I have the bag on the whole time, it fills up the first pass and I just keep going the bag is like my mulching plate. then I dump the bag and go over the yard to pick up and bag the little pieces that are left. I have a Grass Gobbler so the steel mesh lets the finerpieces blow through also reducing the volume I have to haul away.:) :)

[AztlanLC]

If things get so complicated why don't sub-cont. to another LCO with a vaccum just put'em by the curb or route, just an idea cause sounds like even if you go 100 times over it's still going to look messy

[Shady Brook]

Tarp them onto a grass surface, and then multch them to death, and pick up the remeinder as was suggested.

Two days ago, I had my guys hall out, in the neighborhood of 500-600 gallon of maple leaves, that were crammmed into trash cans, out of a back yard and onto a 15 by 25 food patch of grass. I just mutched them as they came out of the back yard, and when done, picked up a couple gobblers and left. Looked good when I left, and by the way, I already had multched a huge pile of leaves that was there before we started on the back yard. Have fun.

Jay

[keifer]

Do your best to think how long it will take. then add half the time to it just to make sure your not under. ex if you think it will take 10 hours add 5 to it plus gas.

[CLARKE]

I think you need to buy a dixie chopper or any mower that
can chop up the leafs to DUST,, YOUR WORKING TO HARD..
SOUNDS TO ME THAT YOUR A BIT :confused:

[Craig Turf Management]

How big is your truck? How big is your trailer?
Bill!

[gogetter]

Save yourself some time and trouble (and go home clean), call someone to vac 'em up!
I know many here say to mulch and if it works for them, great. But I know for some of my lawns it won't work. The reason there are a lot of leaves on these lawns is because there are big trees, which means thin grass underneath. You can't mulch leaves into dirt! If you have thick, lush grass then you may be able to get away with it. If not, then the leaves gotta go.

I put the micro mulch kit on, and I put the doubles on. Then I chased leaves around the lawn while encased in a cloud of dust and dirt that I couldn't get away from. It was ridiculous!.

Called someone from the paper and he comes out and sucks them up. I just have to get them to the curb.
Then me and my mower go home clean.:D

(That's not really true, I don't even bring the mower with me now).

[MuskTurfKing]

I'd just run it over and over with the mower, and if there were big pieces left, run over it with a mower with a bag, then blow the dust so it can't be seen.

Hank

[joshua]

i bet some of you call yourselfs pro's. haha, some of the replies on this post are funny. shaddy brook had the best reply. clarke, your telling me you would take your mower in a mulched bed and mulch the leaves. haha thats good, it made me laugh.
i had a pile 3' wide, 2' high and 50yards long and took 17 bussels of leaves after i mulched them. and as groundskeeper said( tied for best reply) run over them with the bagging system on but take it a step father and once you've mulched all the leaves to your liking dump what you have in the bags and remulch them to take a tad bit less.
this is what i would call an easy job, tarp the leaves take them to the front or side lawn whatever is bigger, mulch them, dump the bags remulch whats in the bags, if you have a exmark with the ultra vac, clean the shoot, then bag up dust/dime size leafs. the diffuclty of this job may vary due to fence with small gate or size of lawn you have to mulch the leaves. also the size of your tarp will be a help to you if there is no fence. good luck to you

[PaulJ]

PRECISION LC

You didn't say anything about the leaves being in a mulched bed in your first post.(or I didn't) catch that). using a mower to mulch or pichup leaves in a mulched bed is NOT a good idea. I'd say your options are1-Rake onto tarps and move to grass area so you can use the mower. (alot of time) 2 Rake and tarp them to your truck--pack them into your truck --just stomp them down. 3 use some sort of vac to shred( Echo Shren-n-Vac works good for small areas , would take time for your job) and bag them or blow them into a covered truck. 4 sub it out.

Sorry about the confusion I thought we were talking about leaves on grass.

[PRECISION LC]

thanks for all your input guys. i did the project today. i hired another guy and we raked them onto tarps and then hauled them to the truck and smashed them down. it went pretty smooth.
thanks
kyle:blob2: