leaves

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.)

 

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.

 

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.

 

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..

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

 

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.