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How To Pick Up Wet Leaves (Without Clogging Your Mower)

Fall leaves

Learning how to pick up wet leaves can save you a lot of hassle over the course of fall, especially if you’re “lucky” enough to own a property encircled by maple, birch and oak trees that ceaselessly shed on your lawn. When you add moisture to the equation, your problem goes from annoying to downright appalling. Luckily, there are a few tips and tricks that can help you keep your yard looking great throughout autumn.

Rake Like You Mean It

Fall leaves The answer to the question of how to pick up wet leaves without jamming your mower is often as simple as an aggressive raking policy. Rather than letting leaves pile up all over your lawn and tackling the job all at once, raking them into piles a day or two after they have fallen is your best weapon to keep your leaf situation at a more manageable level.

With thinner cover, you will be able to use a standard push mower or riding lawn mower to slice up the leaves without worrying too much about them clogging the blades and potentially burning out your motor. Bagging larger piles of leaves and then removing them from the property will save your gear the extra wear and tear.

Feeling a little lazy? You can avoid all the raking by simply buying or renting a leaf blower and making the piles in a quicker, and noisier fashion. If you don’t feel like bagging your piles, then you can blow or rake onto a tarp and pull that tarp to a disposal area on your property, or wherever your municipality picks up fall waste.

Money Mulchers

An alternative to raking is to buy a mulching mower. Learning how to pick up leaves with a mulching mower isn’t just a great way to clear your lawn, with the collecting bag you’ll end up with a supply of mulch that you can use as compost or as protective mulch around the base of trees, shrubs and other winter-faring plants. Most leaves make for great mulch, except those that take a long time to decompose (such as oak), which are better raked up and disposed of. If you choose not to use a bag, then you can let the mulched leaves sit on top of your grass, providing a good level protection and also eventually offering up welcome nutrients to your lawn during decomposition.

Check out all the lawn and garden products available on NAPA Online or trust one of our 17,000 NAPA AutoCare locations for routine maintenance and repairs. For more information on leaf raking, chat with a knowledgeable expert at your local NAPA AUTO PARTS store.

Photo courtesty of Pixabay

Benjamin Hunting View All

Having been bitten by the car bug at a young age, I spent my formative years surrounded by Studebakers at car shows across Quebec and the northeastern United States. Over ten years of racing, restoring, and obsessing over automobiles lead me to balance science writing and automotive journalism full time.  I currently contribute as an editor to several online and print automotive publications, and I also write and consult for the pharmaceutical and medical device industry.

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