Use them as a mulch over any planting beds (don't think I'd use them on the lawn). Folks actually pay good money for pine straw mulch as it is called - it is just pine needles.

Is it not possible to leave them beneath the pine trees? Not much will grow there so why not use the natural mulch they make for themselves at no cost to you?

Pine needles make a very good mulch, Amazon sells a box with enough to cover 200 square feet 3 inches thick for $129.00. While pine needles will test out as acidic, 3.5 pH, after the soil bacteria digest them the soil is closer to neutral then acidic.

In my experience pine needles do not get changed much going through a mower or shredder. If pine needles are mixed in with leaves they go through the shredder and into the compost and if mixed in well I do not find them when I empty the bin. If they are loose and unmixed I put them down as mulch.

I use them as mulch around and under my berry bushes. They mat well (so they look good,) but are much more permeable than leaves or grass clippings. I have to gather them from other places, so having a supply of them would be great!

Back when I did compost needles they'd turn into a somewhat al dente noodle when done. I just use them as mulch these days as they make a very attractive mulch to my eye.

tj

They're a nice compost pile addition, especially when mowed up with grass clippings. I also use them as a wide path/mulched verge between my house and my vegetable garden. I wouldn't use them for heavy use paths because they're a little slippery when first applied. My primary paths are wood chipped. My wood chipped path cutting through my pine needled area is very pretty, if I say so myself. I use other various mulches in other parts of the yard. (Right now, most of my yard, where I don't walk, is under a thick seaweed mulch because Maine had a big storm in Oct.. I spent the cyclonic storm on the beach. It was wild and gorgeous. Next spring, a lot of that seaweed mulch will be covered with compost mulch, the best mulch available to humankind.) I have a mass grave next to my bedroom door and the pine needles in that spot sank alarmingly this spring. (Two cats and a dog who liked each other are all in the same hole, which took some careful doing on my part.) I put at least five Lowe's leaf bags of packed pine needles from the Brewer dump on that indentation this fall. I believe that I have traced my mother's dementia to years before she had any obvious symptoms to her becoming unusually loquacious years earlier.

I'm just saying.

I have used pine needles on the strawberry patch in the fall. They make a nice ground mulch for the berries the next spring.

If I had extra [could have had], I would use them in paths.

Ryan appears to have gone awol. But if he sees the responses I imagine he’ll get the message. Pine needles are not something to ‘get rid of’.