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  Kieran Ray November 12, 2009 at 5:05pm

  How about using a Billy goat?! there are loads realy cheap on ebay atm, it can also be used for picking up the arrisings from scarifying and litter etc on commercial jobs. I use one and it is fantastic.
• PRO

  Nick @ NM Garden Services Ltd November 12, 2009 at 5:45pm

  If not using powered tools, Wilkinson Sword leaf rakes (readily available from most garden centres and big diy stores such as B&Q) do the job nicely.
  
  Once raked into piles then they can be pushed either with your boots or the rakes (whatever method suits best) onto a small tarpaulin. The tarp can then be dragged or picked up by the corners wherever you need to take it. The best sized tarp in my experience is 1.8x2.4m. Any bigger and they cn de too heavy or cumbersome to drag around!
  
  This method can also be used for any other garden rubbish such as grass clippijngs, hedge trimmings, weeds etc etc.
  
  Good luck :)
  
  Nick
• PRO

  Phil Voice November 12, 2009 at 5:46pm

  Get yourself a wooden hay rake and screw a quarter inch piece of ply wood onto the face (so you can use the thin edge as a scraper and the wooden dowels do not foul the grass) - make the board a little wider than the head each side.
  
  Use this to scrape the leaves - work in lines and keep pulling until it's no longer efficient to and then pull into piles - clear up the worst but don't worry about the few stragglers; just blow those onto the area that you haven't touched.
  
  You'll be surprised how efficient the board is over a rake - just needs fairly short grass. When I was the junior greenkeeper on Blackmoor I used to do the 8th, 11th and 10th fairways single handed :)
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  Dan Frazer Gardening November 12, 2009 at 6:02pm

  Thanks for all the tips people. Phil, have you got a picture of this? I can't form an image in my head.
  
  Cheers
  Dan
  
  Philip Voice said:

  Get yourself a wooden hay rake and screw a quarter inch piece of ply wood onto the face (so you can use the thin edge as a scraper and the wooden dowels do not foul the grass) - make the board a little wider than the head each side.
  
  Use this to scrape the leaves - work in lines and keep pulling until it's no longer efficient to and then pull into piles - clear up the worst but don't worry about the few stragglers; just blow those onto the area that you haven't touched.
  
  You'll be surprised how efficient the board is over a rake - just needs fairly short grass. When I was the junior greenkeeper on Blackmoor I used to do the 8th, 11th and 10th fairways single handed :)
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  pete November 12, 2009 at 6:41pm

  What I do with as many as I can is - when I've got them all together - run over and over them with the mulcher on a high setting (used to do it with a sit-on, much easier) – then put the confetti straight onto the flower beds, should be gone by spring. I know its said to be acidic, but I think that's ok, where we've mixed in masses into empty plots on our allotment – everything seems to grow just fine.
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  Geoff Norfolk November 12, 2009 at 7:18pm

  I've a Stihl BG85 blower which I usually use to send all the leaves onto the lawn which I then pick up with the mower............. has anyone used the SH86 for sucking and shredding leaves in beds. Did have an Echo vacuum years ago but it wasn't particularly good at sucking up leaves so always ended up using it in blow mode.
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  Kieran Ray November 12, 2009 at 7:23pm

  There is a vac kit for your BG85! I use it for jobs were I cant get the billy goat into, I have the wonder hose for it so can use that in the beds as itll fit between the shrubs! normaly i just blow the leaves into lines then go along with the billy goat. Far quicker than going over the whole lawn or car park.
  
  Geoff Norfolk said:

  I've a Stihl BG85 blower which I usually use to send all the leaves onto the lawn which I then pick up with the mower............. has anyone used the SH86 for sucking and shredding leaves in beds. Did have an Echo vacuum years ago but it wasn't particularly good at sucking up leaves so always ended up using it in blow mode.
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  Graeme @ BGS November 12, 2009 at 8:20pm

  pete said:

  What I do with as many as I can is - when I've got them all together - run over and over them with the mulcher on a high setting (used to do it with a sit-on, much easier) – then put the confetti straight onto the flower beds, should be gone by spring. I know its said to be acidic, but I think that's ok, where we've mixed in masses into empty plots on our allotment – everything seems to grow just fine.

  
  Actually this time of year it is okay to mulch the leaves with your mower and leave the very fine cuttings on the lawn. As long as you don't have too many and not all messy & left in big piles. They will soon break down aand no it will not encourage build up of thatch.
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  pete November 13, 2009 at 1:25am

  When the 'peat-free' thing first came about and I was busily making wonderful leaf mould for some of my customers when ever I could - the TV programmes at the time were not telling us (if I remember it right) how valuable the leaves and leaf compost was...... and I thought it was because they were worried that the general gardening public would be straight up into the woods to nick all the leaves from around all the trees, which would not be a good thing.
  
  An old feller down the pub tonight told me he'd heard on the local radio this morning that the council are now cleaning up all the leaves in the street and taking them to Birmingham, where they're air-dried and compressed into logs to burn to help to keep you warm - seems a bit wrong to me when surely you could compost the leaves and then use the compost to feed the soil, to feed the plants, to feed yourself that will then..... help to keep you warm.
  
  Along with some Good English Real Ale of course.
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  Colin@Green Room Gardens November 13, 2009 at 5:45pm

  I have the same problem with a site I look after, from the middle of october till early december,twice a month, I remove approx 12 dumpy bags of leaves a visit (soul destroying). I use a large stihl blower to blow them into big lines,then rake them into the bags, standing in the bags to compress them as I go. This takes all day.
  I am now looking at a machine that attaches to the back of the van and has a large hose with a diameter of about 8", this hoovers the leaves up, mulches them through the fan and spits them into the back of the van like a small chipper, cutting out the raking into piles then into bags- they are on ebay at the moment 2nd hand from £300- £600 for a bily goat version. look for leaf collectors/paddock cleaners
  The leaves are piled up for 2 years to decompose then I skip them.costs me half a day and £65 for a skip- sorted