It's a ritual here. My neighbors spend entire weekends raking and bagging leaves, even tho' mowing them in would be so much faster, easier, more efficient What is the compulsion to banish every leaf? . . . .and such a waste of bags.

west - if we lived closer you could have some (actually a lot) of mine (grin)

Even though we can burn here I haven't because I'm gathering them up for other purposes but I must say, I LOVE the smell of burning leaves. But then again I like the smell of coffee but not the taste. I know - odd.

Val

so what are you saying, you dont eat leaves??? jk

actually, I talked the municipal leaf vacuum truck-o-matic into dumping leaves at my dads since he lives in city limits, so i just go down there and load up so much my lil truck will barely pull.

I've used them to cover bare spots, compost pile, lasagna, mulch mow into lawn....they are this organic gardener's backbone.

Our municipality has been discouraging people from burning any garden debris or leaves. We do the municipal compost thing anyway so it was just a matter of going one step further and informing people of what they can do with their leaves.

I just keep tabs on when curbside pick-up is going to be and over the last few years have compiled a list of addresses where they shred the precious things down to beautiful smithereens. Today I picked-up another 8 huge bags and a bale of hay in my little auto from one such address. :O) Life is good!

Where I am, most people now rake them into the woods which surround their property, and in the suburbs/city they bag to the curb. Any and all leaves are picked up by the city which now has three areas where leaf mold and mulch is created for our public Victorian gardens as well as public parks and such. Anything above the amount required is hauled away to our city compost facilities for browns where in the spring the compost is sold for cheap.

If you want to burn anything here you need a permit and a very good excuse/reason.

I don't mind it in the city, despite my mulch pile. We rake to the curb, and the city vacuums them and puts them on a gigantic mulch pile. Baggers do bug me, because those end up in the landfill instead.

Most people here have seemed to bag their leaves in past years. This year I haven't seen them. I'm not sure if it's still a little too soon, or more folks are just mulching into the lawn.

Karen

yunno, i can get a great amount of leaves and all the free horse manure i want, i wish i had a front-end loader, i'd make a compost row* and sell it. I wonder if it would be profitable...

*i say row because that's the way the companies that do make large quantities of compost do it.....

so what are you saying, you dont eat leaves???

Hmmm....lettuce, cabbage, celery, herbs......yes.....maple.....no :-)

Val

Due to the amount of pollutants given off by burning leaves it is illegal to do that around here, county wide ordinance, and the fine for being ticketed the first time is now $75.00 doubling each time there after.
Just given the amount of nutrients those leaves contain it is a real waste to burn them up, but add to that the amount of pollution generated then it becomes a really expensive means of "getting rid" of those leaves.
Even though you could be fined for burning leaves around here there are still ignorant people that do and when I get a whiff of the stuff that burning produces I have an asthama attack that even wearing a dust mask will not help. So even if people cannot understand that they are wasting a lot of money burning leaves they should be able to grasp the concept that that burning has adverse affects on other peoples health and for that reason alone burning leaves should not be done.

Talk about adding insult to injury, it's bad enough that people use blowers, which are noisy and smelly and waste fossil fuel, instead of rakes. I had to listen to dueling leaf blowers this past weekend, both next door neighbors going at the same time, and and one was going for 2 hours! It was so noisy I just stayed in the house. I enjoy raking leaves, great exercise, quiet and contemplative in a way, and there's nothing like a rake for smoothing the grade and raking up thatch, sticks, rocks, etc.

Then after that effort to contribute to global warming, they burn the leaves?! What a wonderful mulch and compost they make and FREE. I LOVE the look of assorted leaves as they carpet my gardens, woodland areas, and shrub borders. Such a nice collage of color slowly turning a nice, rich, brown.

In our municipality, you can obtain a permit to burn between Jan 1 and May 1, and you are only allowed to burn brush and yard trimmings only, NO leaves, grass clippings, construction debris, etc.

Ehmmmm.....so glad I'm not judgmental.

Val - addressing no one in particular

I'd like to add to what Kimmsr said about the asthma. I know a guy that ended up in the hospital because of leaf smoke that triggered an asthma attack. Several studies have been made on the effects of smoke in general on people with lung problems other than asthma. Particularly those with COPD. Burning leaves in a heavily populated area is just plain disrespectful of anyone that could be suffering from lung problems.

Last year, due to the drought, a lot more poison ivy ended up in leaf litter. I had to visit the Immediate Care Center for a serious poison ivy reaction that was unrelated to burning leaves or anything. It was from felling a dying tree that was covered in it. But, the point is that they assumed that I had been burning leaves because they had so many others in there that had done so with poison ivy in the piles and with it on wood that still had bark with pieces of vine and the smoke covered them with tiny particles of the oils. They didn't even ask. They just looked at me and said, "Ah, you've been burning leaves, too." Burning leaves is an incredibly stupid risk to be taking and if someone caused a child to end up in the ER, let alone another adult, I'm sure they would be thinking it was pretty stupid, too. It just sucks that it takes something horrible to make people think for just a moment.

man....after the heavy rain we just had that beat the leaves off the trees, people are goin nuts burning leaves, i saw huges piles of burning leaves on the way home, and only one person out on their mower!!! jeez!

Do wood burning stoves, wood burning fireplaces, outdoor fire pits, briquette barbeques (or in my case, a gas barbeque when I burn the steaks) and other similar burning devices cause or contribute to the asthma attacks as well? I do not know anyone with this problem so my knowledge is limited. I'm guessing any smoke particulate causing activity is an issue?

Lloyd

I remember leaf burning from the early 60s, but I haven't lived anywhere it was legal since then. There are days here when it's illegal to use wood burning stoves, fireplaces, etc because inversions trap pollutants.

Wood burning stoves, fireplaces, backyard fire pits, grills can create problems for people with asthma, COPD, and other respiratory problems, but usually these do not contribute the volume of smoke that a pile of leaves does when they are burned. I can tell when I am within 1/2 mile of a wood burning stove, depending on the wind, while someone burning leaves 10 miles away is noticeable.
In the 1960's when we did the air quality monitoring here, to provide data for the county wide burning ban, we found that when people burned leaves the level of noxious pollutants in the air went way up (I do not have the numbers anymore, sorry) while when people had wood burning stoves in use the numbers were somewhat higher than normal but not always in the dangerous areas and during the summer when people would be outside grilling there was barely a noticeable change in the pollutants, they were still there just in smaller quantities and nowhere near as high as when leaves were burned. There often were days when even "healthy" people were adversly affected by the pollutants from those burning leaves.