From Snow Shovels To Pizza Boxes: Creative Solutions For Fall Leaf Cleanup

THE LEAVES ARE STILL FALLING

It's peak time for raking. There are rakers of all kinds, aren't there? Some love to rake, and they rake once a week beginning when the first few leaves fall from the trees. Others are still raking as the late-dropping Maples are finally letting go of summer.

I wish I had a big enough yard to buy a lawn mower with a bagger like my neighbor across the street. His yard looks like a carpet everyday, as he's out there every afternoon playing on his mower; with the ease of a bagger making his great big yard look like a million dollars. He las lots of lovely trees, so if he didn't have a system like that, I don't know how he would ever get his leaves picked up.

Then there are those of us who look for the most efficient way to rake up our leaves in smaller yards. My family has found that all you really need is a rake, a snow shovel, and a pizza box to make bagging your leaves a breeze. Maybe unconventional, but it seems to work really well for us.

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RAKE'EM!

First, we rake our leaves up in piles, handling the front yard first, and then switching gears to the backyard. (But let's get the front yard taken care of first).

Once our leaves are raked up in piles we grab our garbage can and put a giant "Leaf & Garden Bag' in it.  Then, one of us grabs our snow shovel, and scoops up a shovel full of leaves, and dumps it in the trash can, and after every dumping, the other person takes a pizza box and presses the leaves down to the bottom of the bag. We repeat the process until we get the bag completely full.

TIMELINE

My son Tanner and i raked up approximately 12-15 giant bags of leaves last night using this method in our front yard, and were done in about 2 1/2 hours.

Try it! FYI: We also wear gloves while doing this as leaves can get kind of scratchy. Also, if you are someone who has allergies, you might want to wear a facemask so the dust from the leaves doesn't end up giving you a sore throat the next day.

Happy raking!  Let me know your method for raking. Kelly.cordes@townsquaremedia.com.