Any way to burn leaves?

[mike_van]

Right in the middle of fall cleanup here, I've dumped the Trac Vac cart  26 times so far, probably 15 more to go. Seems like in the era of 98.00 bbl. oil, there'd be a use for all those leaves?

[DanG]

I bet the Bio-Mizer would do it, if they were ground up finely enough.

[SwampDonkey]

Maple, ash and birch make great compost and break down quick. By spring they are nearly all gone from my lawn. I never rake leaves and never add fertilizer.  ;D Oak and beech not so good, seems to be harder to break down.


Any of you fella's with wood burning trucks try to gasify it? Send a sac out to Paul_H he can test some. ;D

[sawguy21]

I ran the mulching mower over the leaves, that works fine for me. Too DanG lazy to pick up and bag.  :D Leaf blower and vac sales are brisk now so who am I to complain.

[mike_van]

I have to clean 'em up here, just too thick to mulch. Under those huge maples, they're a foot deep. 7 more loads today, dumped over a bank.  Rather than a special unit to burn them, I was thinking of a way to process them into fuel, so they could get burnt in anything, from a fireplace to a homemade stove. Someone looked at a sawdust pile, and figured out how to make pellets, only problem is you need their pelletstove to burn them. And, thats all it can burn.  Just seems a shame to  waste a heat source, but, every time I burn a brush pile, I think the same thing.

[Furby]

I'm guessing there would be a lot of fly ash burning them.
Also, you'd have to get them pretty dry to be effective, otherwise mold will set in pretty easily while being stored.

[thecfarm]

I'd like to have them for my garden,compost pile.

[Corley5]

Bale them with a hay baler and burn them in an outdoor boiler.

[Woodcarver]

We go into town and pick them up at the curb by the pick-up load for our vegetable and fruit garden and flower beds.  Leaves are full of trace elements.  Excellent fertilizer.

As SD said they are good for turf, too, if they are run through a shredder or mulching mower so they don't mat down.

[Furby]

Ever try it Corley ???
I'd like to see a pic of a bale or two if someone has some time to kill. ;D
Maybe a square bale and a round bale?

I'm thinking of a big burner like D Dan has and an auto feed to drop a square bale in as needed.

[karl]

A village near me bales their leaves with an old sq. baler and sells them as mulch @ 2 bucks a bale.
Berry growers seem to like 'em, and I've seen several old houses "banked" with the bales to keep the foundation warmer.
Prob'ly burn in outdoor boiler fine- might be hard to keep 'em burning if there is a long time before boiler calls for heat between burns...??? Can't picture 'em leaving much for coals.

[Corley5]

Never burned bales of leaves but have burned small square bales of hay.  The first couple draft cycles are kinda smokey and less than pleasant smelling  ;) ;D  Works best to throw them in on a few sticks of wood for coals.  Harbor Springs used to bale the leaves from town with an old JD 14T square baler and sell them back to the residents  ;) ;D.  Maybe they still do ???  It'd be pretty hard to get leaves to roll in a round baler    A campground up by Mackinaw uses a couple of Hesston hay stackers to pick up leaves.  The machines make a large compressed "loaf".  After composting for a couple years they use the material for landscaping etc in the campground  8) 8)

[Oregon_Sawyer]

I had some leaves in a 55 gal garbage can that ended up near my outdoor wood stove.  They found their way in to the stove with some small limbs and wood scrap.  Burned fine.

Loren