Some gardeners choose to mulch their shed leaves rather than burn them. Shredded leaves are an excellent addition to compost and can be used to produce leaf mold. However, if you have too many leaves to mulch, this can become a tricky and time-consuming task.
This task becomes even trickier if you don’t have a mower (or if your mower doesn’t have suitable blades). In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of using leaves as mulch, and explain how to mulch leaves without a mower. Make sure to read this article until the end!
How to Mulch Leaves Without a Mower
If you have a lot of leaves on your lawn and don’t have a mower, your first thought could be to fill some leaf bags and throw them away — not quite effective, is it? Here are a few ways to mulch leaves without a lawnmower:
Use a Standalone Leaf Mulcher
Using a standalone leaf shredder is an efficient way to mulch leaves. There are several ways to power leaf mulchers, including a gas engine, an electrical cord, or a rechargeable battery. Wet leaves won’t chop up as well, block the mower, and produce a messy lawn.
Pile your leaves at least two to three inches deep if you plan to mulch them without using a mower. Check for clogs between each pass through the leaves. You can also collect shed leaves with a compost garbage bag.
Use a Lawn Trimmer
Another piece of equipment you might already own is a lawn trimmer, sometimes known as a weed eater or weed whacker. The key to using a trimmer to shred leaves is to keep them in one area so they don’t scatter around.
For example, you can take a large bucket, fill it with leaves, and use a hand-held trimmer to turn the leaves into mulch. The main advantage of this method is that your mulched leaves are already inside the bucket and ready to be distributed on the soil. While you might need to work in smaller batches, the mess-free method is pretty effective.
Leaf Blower With Built-in Shredding
Today many leaf blower manufacturers build leaf blowers that are capable to shred leaves while they suck up leaves in vacuum mode. These models have a blower function to blow and move leaves where you need them as well as vacuum mode to vacuum in leaves and shred them with blades inside the unit. The Toro 51621 UltraPlus is a top seller.
Wood Chippers
A wood chipper is another alternative for shredding leaves without a lawnmower. While you probably might not have a wood chipper on hand, finding one for rent at a nearby equipment rental facility or hardware store shouldn’t be too difficult.
These powered devices assist in chipping tree trunks, twigs, branches, and leaves. They can also help in removing large-sized woods in your yard. The mulch produced by wood chippers is efficient and often yields a good end result. Using a wood chipper has several advantages — it quickly eliminates waste without creating a mess, saves time, and is energy efficient.
Walk or Drive Over Them
Lastly, you can either drive over the leaves with your car or walk over them to shred them. To do this, blow or rake your leaves onto your walking path or driveway, then walk or drive through those areas repeatedly.
Make sure you check the weather and schedule this appropriately, as this process requires the leaves to be completely dry. Along with using Fall leaves as mulch, spreading them throughout your grounds is a fantastic way to nourish your lawn. Make sure there are no sticks or sharp objects in the pile of leaves to prevent injury to your feet or a tire puncture.
Make Your Compost
If you don’t have a lawn mower for mulching, you might not even have to shred your leaves. While other leaves take more time to rot than cropped leaves, you may add them to the compost. They will decay into a dark, rich fertilizer in a few months — it will take three to six months for the leaves to decompose in compost.
Put the nitrogen-rich materials and leaves in the compost to speed up decomposition. Avoid using infected leaves when collecting them, as using them as mulch for your other plants could spread disease. Soiled leaves aren’t an option either, as they’ll take longer to decompose and end up contaminating the mulch.
Use a Heavy-Duty Garbage Bag
Simple garbage bags will do if you don’t want to go through the hassle of creating a bin. Fill the bags roughly three-quarters full and add some water. You can also add soil to get things started.
Seal the bag afterwards. Poke holes along the bottom and sides to allow air to circulate. Place the bags in a shady area and wait. As necessary, rehydrate the leaves, much like with compost bins.
Why Mulch Leaves?
Mulching your fall leaves might help produce a natural product known as leaf mold. Upon decomposition of the leaves, a dark compost will develop. Leaf mold improves soil mainly because it boosts soil water retention.
According to research, leaf mold can improve soil water retention by as much as 50%, which is advantageous to plant development and sustainability.
Leaf mold in your yard and garden has many advantages, such as:
- Mulching helps plants quickly obtain nutrients by maintaining soil moisture.
- Reduces the growth of weeds by holding water close to their roots.
- Reduces pollution, since all pieces decompose into humus — an excellent fertilizer!
- Positively affects the ecosystem, benefits creatures and insects, and promotes soil microorganisms.
- Also shields tree roots from heavy machinery.
Mulching leaves will do more than just make your lawn healthier — it benefits the environment too. In fact, using a lawn mower to mulch leaves minimizes the amount of landfill space needed. Additionally, it stops leaves from blocking sewers, which can result in water pollution from algae blooms.
Tips For Mulching Your Leaves
- Be careful when mulching certain leaves. The leaves of walnut, camphor laurel, and eucalyptus all contain compounds that prevent plant growth. It’s best to compost these leaves before using them in your garden.
- Before using leaves as mulch, make sure to shred or chop them. Whole leaves can accumulate into a mat that prevents water from penetrating.
- Use dried leaves for the best results, as they crumble under little pressure. Regardless of the method you select to mulch your leaves, this will significantly improve your outcomes, which is exactly what you want.
- If you add shredded leaves directly to the soil, use slow-release nitrogen fertilizers to assist the leaves’ breakdown and ensure that soil bacteria do not use all of the available nitrogen.
Things to Do With Mulch Leaves
What should you do with all of your shredded leaves now that you have them in tiny bits? Hopefully, you had a purpose for shredding them, that way your efforts aren’t for nothing.
Here are a few common uses for mulch:
Create a Compost Pile
Create compost to add value to your soil. If you already have a compost pile separate from the one you used to make mulch out of your leaves, you can add your mulch to that. The high nitrogen compost of leaf mulch can easily aid the breakdown of organic material in a compost pile.
Protect and Store Root Vegetables
Cold-resistant vegetables and root crops, such as carrots, leeks, kale, and beets, can be preserved in the ground with the help of leaves. You can continue to harvest all Winter long if you cover them.
You can also store beets, carrots, and other root vegetables between layers of crisp, recently fallen leaves if you have a moderate, damp location. Sprinkle water on each layer of leaves (but don’t let them become wet). If you don’t cultivate your vegetables, look for a seller at a farmers’ market who will sell you at least half a bushel of your preferred root vegetables.
Make Leaf Mold
Leaf mold is a fantastic soil byproduct that combines fall leaves with a layer of garden soil or finished compost. After layering compost and leaf shreddings, allow the pile to sit for about a year. Once it’s ready, you’ll have the ideal supplement for potting soil, flower gardens and vegetables, and more.
Lawn Food
Since you won’t have to rake and dispose of the leaves, mulching them into your lawn will save you time and energy. Additionally, mulch leaves can enrich the soil, ensuring your grass is healthy all winter and into the next spring.
Simply pass the leaves through a mulching tool to break them up into tiny pieces and push them into the soil. A thick layer of leaves shouldn’t be left on the lawn as this can suffocate and destroy the grass. However, unless you have a lot of leaves, the mulcher should spread the leaves out sufficiently so that your grass can breathe.
Endnote
Hopefully this article gave you a good idea on how to mulch leaves without a mower. You could stack them on your driveway and repeatedly run your car over them, or shred them with a string trimmer. You can also use a standalone leaf string mulcher.
If none of these choices work for you, consider omitting the mulching process altogether and place the leaves into your compost pile, and let them decompose over the following three to six months.
The composted leaf mold can then be used as garden fertilizer. Fortunately, there are many options when it comes to shredding leaves. Simply choose the method that best suits your needs.
