[grassyfras]

I read all the threads about leaf removal but I just need more advice from you guys. What do you think is the best way to pick up leaves with my equipment that I have. I run a exmark 36", ussaly with doubles or doubles with gators, eb 7001, and tarps. My trailer is small about 5x8 and 2 foot sides that can be added. Im wondering if I should just mulch and blow the beds out and do one final cleanup or haul off leaves everytime. My problem is that my trailer can't hold a bunch of leaves and a mower at the same time so I would have to pick them up later so that would be too time consuming. Any better ways that you guys see? Do you think it would be better to buy a bagger for the mower or will the blower be fine? I'm plannig on charging 2-3 times the cut to mulch the leaves and 4-5 times the cut for removing them. How does that sound? I know this is an over asked question but I dont have huge equipment for leaf removal and I'm trying to make leaves profitable this year. Any adive would be good.

 

[sbvfd592]

do u have a truck the mower can go in??? blow into piles and sub contract some one to suck them up

 

[fblandscape]

Do any of your properties have woods? What about curb side pick-up? You could always make piles at these places, and then spend a day hauling, or pay somebody with a sucker to come by.

 

[Ax Man]

The bagger can be handy after youv'e mulched, to suck up some leaves (other wise they take up too much space).
I don't know how much volume you are talking about, but the mid west dosn't make me think of endless maple and oak forests. Hopefully mulching gets rid of most of your leaves (for the tools that you have to work with.)

 

[bastalker]

We have so many leaves up here, we dont have a choice but to get the blowers out and blow em all in a big pile. Not mulchin this amount of leaves. We have a leaf vack mounted to the front of the truck. The bed has a 5x8 box on the back and suck the piles up. Clean it up with the ultra vac.

You could tarp them into your trailer. 2ft sides? Hell put 4 ft sides on it or 6ft even. Make em as high as you can. Put a board across the sides to keep em somewhat straight..... There only leaves!!
Then you can clean up the leftovers with the w/b.

 

[grassyfras]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try bigger sides and maybe spend a day hauling and the rest of the week making piles of mulched leaves. I'll probbly buy a bagger for the mower and no I don't have a truck to put leaves or the mower in but maybe next year I'll get that its one of my biggest setbacks.

 

[bastalker]

Originally posted by grassyfras
Thanks for the advice. I'll try bigger sides and maybe spend a day hauling and the rest of the week making piles of mulched leaves. I'll probbly buy a bagger for the mower and no I don't have a truck to put leaves or the mower in but maybe next year I'll get that its one of my biggest setbacks.

Dont need a mower just blow em good, ya wont have a problem.Really wouldn't want to leave them in piles to long, ya might get more wind than ya wanted next day or two
Blow in in a pile, tarp em in yer trailer, haul it to the dump, repeat.

 

[grassyfras]

How much leaves do you think I could fit into a little 5x8 trailer with 2-4 foot sides mulched and un mulched do you think?

 

[bastalker]

Originally posted by grassyfras
How much leaves do you think I could fit into a little 5x8 trailer with 2-4 foot sides mulched and un mulched do you think?

How ya gonna mulch without a mower? Mower is hard to transport if your trailer is full of leaves.

If it were me, I would have sides on the trailer where I would have to use the hwy. The underpasses thru town wouldn't be high enough Then if these leves blew out it would save ya a dump run!!

With this method we (2 of us) could do a medium size yard in 3-4 hours, and all the leaves would fit. 2 yards a day at $300 a yard aint to bad. considerin the other guy is an employee..payup

We do a few more cause we can, but you'll get there...

 

[greenman]

I use a 36" metro w/mulch kit, tarps and blower. I either put em to the curb(city service) or drag em onto my trailer, but my trailer is 6.5x16 with 4' sides, so I have no problem hauling off leaves. Another advantage is, most (not all, I do have a few one timers who call) of my leaf jobs are from regular customers, so they get a weekly to biweekly visit to keep the leafs to a minimum, so mulching them is allowable for these accounts.

 

[sildoc]

I had the same dilema. My fix was make sides for my truck with a tarp that woud cover top and back and one on the floor. I would blow all beds, gutters and other than grass areas first. then take 21? 36? 42? (what ever would fit) and mulch/shred/bag at same time. dump in back of truck. at end of day or when full drop off trailer go to dump and pull out the bottom tarp. Beer time. good luck. could do more area when leaves are shredded rather than when whole. Plus save on dump fees since one cu yard is 1 cu yard reguardless wether it is packed in there or loose.

 

[tiedeman]

We do a couple of things: people with woods we just blow it into woods and properties that we have to pick up we first go over the leaves and mulch them down and then we throw the baggers on and bag it. We usually run two crews when doing leaves, one truck and trailer for the equipment and one truck and trailer for the leaves.

 

[walker-talker]

Build the sides of the trailer up 4ft or more. Mow the lawn in circles as to discharge the leaves into the center of the lawn until one large pile is made. Then tarp leaves to the traler. I found it is hard to make any money doing this without the correct equipment. I bidded some jobs last year that were going to cause me to haul the leaves in 2-3 trips. Who else was going to pay for all these trips but the customer. I finally bit the bullet and bought me a leaf loader and an 'ol grain truck. In short, your're just going to have to come up with the most effecient method possible and bid accordingly. The suggestion about hiring someone to come by and suck up the leaves for is a pretty good one also.

Good luck
MATT

 

[Meg-Mo]

Try theMEG MO BLADES THEY WILL CUT HAUL AWAY BY ABOUT 80%. Your little trailer will work fine.

 

[bastalker]

You guys an meg mo that want to mulch the leaves, come on up to Ct. I'll be in an out before your half done!!!!

 

[Bluesteel]

I agree, some properties (or regions) have way too much leaf volume to mulch them in. In order to mulch a lot of leafs into grass, the grass has to be thick and preferably tall. The thing is, where there are a lot of leafs, there’s not usually tall thick grass.

Even then, there is only so much you can mulch. I’ve mulched in huge volumes of leafs into tall thick grass, but there is only so much stuff you can stuff into any container. You can reduce the volume to 10% of the original, but in some places, that 10% is just too much.

Then there’s the effect it has on the soil. Lots of acid in all those leafs, so you may need to apply lime. Again, think about VOLUME. You don’t want to do a quick fix in the fall that screws up the lawn for next spring.