Bag 'em, brush 'em, or blow 'em: What to do with the leaves to keep your yard from suffering
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The good weather to get those leaves corralled is quickly slipping away but do you really need to break your back by wiping the multicolored lawnscape clean?
It turns out you do have options and they come with varying degrees of effort.
There's no question the leaves are beautiful this time of year, but if they're still hanging over your head, you may want to wait so you only have to rake once, but do you really need to get rid of them all?
"Depending on the type of leaf that it is, and the and the abundance or lack of abundance of leaves that you have, will help us determine that," said Jeff Fowler, senior turfgrass educator at Penn State Extension.
He said when it comes to abundance - remember they are creating a blanket over your grass which is a living, breathing plant.
"If we let them lay in an overabundance of leaves, we're going to suffocate the plant and we don't want to do that," he explained.
So, grab the mower and according to Fowler, that's a way to mulch them down, bag them up, and then put them in a pile because that won't let them degrade and rot in your yard.
If you've got a spot to do that, it could save you a lot of money on fertilizer come next year.
"[It's] really quality compost that will add nutrients and water holding capacity to your gardens or your yard," Fowler said.
If the carpet of leaves is more sparse, Fowler said mulching them right back into the yard also works, but be aware of the quantity.
"If you can still see the grass you're in good shape," he said.
However, the exception is oak leaves.
"Oak leaves are really high in tannic acid so we, we'd like to compost them before we would add them to back to the yard or back into our gardens for example," Fowler said.
And take it from me - someone who learned the hard way - a pile of leaves will absolutely kill the grass in that spot.
There is always the option to bag 'em up and put them on the curb, or in some neighborhoods, you can push them to the curb and the town comes by with a vacuum truck and sucks 'em up.