Pine Straw Rake for cleaning up leaves? Useful or not?

[EdwardL]

Has anyone used a pine straw rake for cleaning up leaves? Do they work well for that? -- I seen comments pro and con, but would like to hear from someone who actually uses one for this task. I have a York rake, but wondering if a pine straw rake would be better.

 

[Torvy]

Couldn't say. My place produces mostly pine straw. Neighbor has a rake and it gets sticks and such, too. Not a large enough volume of leaves to say. Seems the only problem would be filling/clogging faster.

 

[oosik]

I have 80 acres and ONLY ponderosa pines. In the fall I "gather" the pine needles off my lawns with my riding mower. Suck up and blow into rows. Gather the rows into my wheelbarrow and off to the trash pile.

If this works for big 'ol long pine needles - it will surely work for your leaves.

 

[DJ54]

On a very much smaller scale I gather leaves for mulch in the garden. My neighbor has long needled pines along the edge of his yard. I had him blow leaves from other trees into windrows, but he also blew the pine needles into a windrow. I used my lawn-vac with a 12' remote hose and handle to pick them up. It has enough suction that it picks them right up.

I also have another one that connects to the mower deck on a dedicated Cub Cadet, on that one seems the needles get packed in the boot at the discharge and will plug if you go too fast. The remote hose works best. I bought both Agi-Fab lawn-vacs at Spring consignment auctions for pennies on the dollar and both work very well. Gave $135 for one, $140 for the other. Just some food for thought. This is a picture of the $140 one. Remote hose kit is around $115.00 well worth the money the labor it saves.

 

[5030]

Never collected leaves or other debris from the lawns. I let them blow down the road and become some one else's issue if they want to partake in that exercise. I don't. In the spring I do pick up larger branches for the burn pile but that is it. The little ones, the mower gobbles up.

 

[Jrasband]

Yeah, I think collecting leaves out of the lawn is silly. You realize that it's fertilizer and with your lawn mower they will break down and will be gone by summer?

 

[Torvy]

Yeah, I think collecting leaves out of the lawn is silly. You realize that it's fertilizer and with your lawn mower they will break down and will be gone by summer?

True. Only caveat would be if the wind/rain stack them too deep in spots. Can kill the grass.

We are 100% rural, so no actual 'grass' or lawn anymore. We gather needles to use as pine straw mulch. We may even start baling it for sale. It is amazing what people pay for what is effectively debris.

 

[oldballs]

Back to the OP's question as to the ability of a Pine Needle Rake usage for leaves.. I'd say that it would get most of the leaves in a heavy covering of leaves.....then in windrows to finally do something with them is the question. My PNR has been used only for Pine needles/cones.....and it did a good job for that...... Yet, the needles/pine cones still had to be disposed of ....usually in a bonfire.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[shooterdon]

My avatar shows I am surrounded by trees and I have large trees in the mowed area around the house. I get a lot of leaves and usually do three passes at them in the fall. One pass in the summer before the grass pops up. My solution after 8 years of work was to buy Gator mulching blades. Mulch them back into the grass. Leaves cannot be wet. I have 2 acres and it takes an hour per pass with the ZT.

I used a riding mower with a bagger for a couple of years but is very slow. Does a good job if leaves are not wet. Put Gator blades on it as well but still filled the rear bags quickly and started just mulching back onto to lawn. That would take over 2 hours per session.

The other thing I tried was a Little Wonder blower. It does a good job but leaves you with mounds of leaves to either blow into the woods or pick up
Even if a pine rake works, you have to have a place to move them.

 

[Molalla1]

I use a back pack blower (the biggest that Still makes) and blow them into the pasture and I have a lot of leaves, it's about 1 acre around my house . . . many behind.