# how do you shred leaves?



## meganwf (Jul 5, 2005)

I have lots of leaves but no shredding "machines" as we mow with reel mower, scythes, chickens or have a landscaping company descend on the yard. I pick up already shredded leaves from freecycle folks or a landscaping place for mulch in the garden and to help with the compost. But I would love to turn my piles of leaves into my own mulch with the least noise/pollution/dust/weight (i'm small). What do you all do?


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## PyroDon (Jul 30, 2006)

You can make a leaf shredder out of an old push mower 
a self popelled type works best . 
mount a plate on the bottom that the blades will clear . The plate can be metal or ply wood . Cut a hole in the top of the deck making a hopper to lod the leaves into. Near the base of the hopper put a + beater chain driven from the self propelled sprocket. This feeds and restricts the ammount of leaves entering . two blades mounted on the mower seem to make for finer pieces but require a little more HP . 
I believe there are detailed instructions on how to make such a shredder in mother earth news .not sure which issue but it was back in the late 70s or early 80s.

Of course you can simply get a mulching mower and mow them up


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Check around at garage sales and auctions for a rear-bagger Toro mulching mower. I found a cheap 18" one 3 or 4 years ago and that takes care of all shredding here, including Christmas tree boughs. Works better on leaves than most shredders.

Martin


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## nandmsmom (Mar 3, 2006)

I just run over them with my mower with the bag attached. It works well for smaller jobs.

Heather


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## Jack in VA (Jul 24, 2003)

A mower with bagger works best but putting them in a trashcan and taking a weedeater to them works.


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## Tricky Grama (Oct 7, 2006)

If you don't want to save the shredded leaves, just mow & leave the clippings on the yard.

Patty


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## rocket (Sep 9, 2005)

My mulching mower doesn't bag very well (leaves or grass). I tends to just push everything down into the ground. Which, I guess, means it's a pretty good mulcher, right?

Anyway, I got an electric chipper/shredder which works pretty well. It's made by McCullough and I found it at Osh's. The feed hopper is small and a little too restrictive for large leaves, so it's a bit tedious to keep forcing them through. I'm thinking of how to modify it. But this weekend I was still able to get about 30 gallons of shredded Sycamore leaves and about 25 gallons of shredded cornstalks. I can't wait to mix it into the compost pile.


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## MeanDean (Apr 16, 2002)

nandmsmom said:


> I just run over them with my mower with the bag attached. It works well for smaller jobs.
> 
> Heather


I do just about the same - only I run over them once w/out the bag at a 3" height ...

... then come back for with the bagger at about 1.75" or 2" height. Makes for great winter ground cover - not bad for helping w/grass seed too (_and less hassle than hay_).


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## Jeslik (Mar 16, 2005)

** edit ** didn't realize I was reading threads so far in the past. Wasn't trying to bring a dead thread back to life. Apologies.


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## GeorgiaberryM (Mar 30, 2004)

We own a landscape company, mostly design/build but occasional maintenance, and we own ten acres with a very large lawn and lots of trees; we go through a lot of leaves. Shredding with a bag mower is the easiest, but mulching them back in is the best. Still, you will likely have occasions where that is just not practical.

Many say that they need to be shredded to be used or they will mat. I've found this to rarely be the case and very rarely important when they did. So the simple answer is to just not shred them. We compost them by throwing them in the chicken yard or pig pen. Before we had those animals we just piled them up and let the worms go after them. If you don't have much room for that then just get some old pallets and nail them into a cube shape without a top or bottom and keep adding leaves; this is rather tidy looking. After that you'd want to start another one so you can use the compost out of the first.

Husband o'G


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

I have a 3 in 1 muching mower nothing special it is technicaly a murry but under a store breand name 

rear bag , mulch or side discharge

bagging makes great mulch but to slow
mulch makes extremly fine mulch but realy bogs down the 6.5 horse engine
side discharge works well but clogs up

so small block of wood placed to hold the gaurd that normaly covers the side discharge up 

now this i agree is dagerous as you can see the blade and could easely touch it DON'T , DON'T EVEN GET CLOSE 
but it will then go through tall grass and piles of leaves without bogging down or cloging 
it disharges it in an arc about 4 feet high so keep the wind on your left unless you like eating the dischargerd leaves and grass

then i simply mow larger circles ovals in the yard clock wise forming piles of shredded leaves in the middle then a tarp and rake them on 
fastest way to rake yard i have found short of the 60 inch scag zero turn with 3.5 bushel rear bagger with the one lever empty feature 

one of the old ladies down the street had a lawn sevice come and they would mow her yard full of leaves in 15-20 minutes and leave 3 piles


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## meganwf (Jul 5, 2005)

I never did find a solution for chopping my leaves this year so I raked a lot into a pile around three norway maples we need to cut down, put some fencing around them and when I get a chance I'll add some green matter and let it rot so that at some point I can turn it into a flower garden. The rest of the whole leaves I raked into the garden where the chickens are parked. I would rather have them chopped though as that seems to turn to humus much more readily. Meanwhile someone I know has a mulching mower and they religiously chop and bag all their leaves and they gave me every single bag. Yipeee!! Got some from freecyle that way too.

I think that the mower with bag attachment sounds great, in principle, but we are very UNhandy and machine related things always break down, I can't get them started my myself etc. If gardeners.com has their electric mulcher on sale again I might spring for it. Just hate the thought of picking up the leaves and putting them in it.

thanks for the suggestions!


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## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Now it's evident as to why you want to shred them, if they are Norway maple! That means that they fall flat and remain that way. They'll form a solid mat if used as mulch. They will take a long time to break down in the soil if tilled in. They'd create anaerobic pockets if gobs of them were underground. Great for composting if shredded. Otherwise, they can become just one big layer of flat leaves which shed water and take forever to break down.

Martin


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

Paquebot said:


> Now it's evident as to why you want to shred them, if they are Norway maple! That means that they fall flat and remain that way. They'll form a solid mat if used as mulch. They will take a long time to break down in the soil if tilled in. They'd create anaerobic pockets if gobs of them were underground. Great for composting if shredded. Otherwise, they can become just one big layer of flat leaves which shed water and take forever to break down.
> 
> Martin


not to mention the fact that they spread seeds and rookie maple tappers, like me, mistake them for sugar maples and allow them to grow...


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

they make electric shreaders for the un-handy it amounts to an electric motor that spins a blade/wire whip there is a hopper above and a place to put a bag or garbage can below.

like these

http://www.amazon.com/Flowtron-Ulti...=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-4116557-5480110?ie=UTF8&s=hi

http://www.amazon.com/Flowtron-Leaf...=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-4116557-5480110?ie=UTF8&s=hi


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

Well, the easy answer to your question on how to shred the leaves with the least amount of work/noise, etc. is simply to rake them up, and dump them in some out of way to compost on their own. Yes, it may take awhile, but this is certainly the less work/ less noisy way.

But it seems that you have chickens. If so, bag up those nice leaves in the fall when it's dry and store them under roof so they don't get wet. Then about once a week, take a bag out to the chickens and dump in their pen. Not only does this give the chickens exercise and relieves boredom (they'll scratch and scratch those leaves around), but they also eat any bugs that may have been hiding in the leaves. Plus, you get some free litter for in your chicken coop.

Of course, chickens don't eat the leaves, so to completely recycle the leaves goats are great at it! Dump a bag of leaves in, and by the next day all those leaves are turned into little goat berries!!!!!!


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## meganwf (Jul 5, 2005)

yes, the chickens are "going to town" on all the leaves I raked into the garden but they have also raked away all the shredded leaf mulch I use around the perennials! thought maybe some chicken wire pinned down would keep them out... maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.

meanwhile thanks for the links to the flowtron. i'll read the reviews!


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