Autumn is here! Love those leaves by doing something useful with them. Rake them, shred them and save ’em to use in your YOLO Compost Tumbler throughout the year as a carbon-rich material. No shredding machine? No problem! Use your lawnmower to shred dry autumn leaves. These photos show you how to do this. What are you waiting for? Start sweeping and shredding today.
- This pile of leaves has been building for two weeks. The deeper layers were already quite dense and matted.
2. This is about 1/3 of the pile spread out on my driveway. It takes longer to sweep the leaves than it does to shred, so go big and do a lot in one go. I had my mower on a faster setting first and then medium once the bulk was reduced. You can also start with your mower on medium cutting height and then drop it a bit lower.
3. Drive over the leaves repeatedly. Up and down, up and down. The grass catcher is not necessary if the back of your lawnmower has a flap to prevent the leaves from being sprayed against your legs. If you are using the grass catcher, empty it onto the paving to mow the leaves again.
4. That same pile, swept into a heap.
5. In total, I filled 9 of these tubs with shredded leaves – from the original pile as well as more leaves from the garden and pavement. And that’s how to shred leaves using a lawnmower.
It took me around 90 minutes to work through the pile, rake up more leaves, to sweep the driveway (a few times) and to put leaves in the tub to dump in my chicken-wire leaf bin.
6. Leaves range from semi shredded to very fine.
7. Leaf powder