Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wrangling with the wacker

Ever since Mom moved down here 6 years ago, she has tried to give me her 'leaf thing'.  I refused, having my own methods of shredding leaves.  But this year I decided to get it out of her garage, bring it over and give it a try.

It's a Craftsman Leaf-Wacker and I have no idea how long ago she bought it.  So I positioned it over a 32-gallon Roughneck to try it out.

The contender:  My stash of leaves.  


It was the PERFECT day: High 50s.  Bright sun.  No wind. 


At first I scooped up armfuls of leaves and dumped them in the hopper.  Then I realized I could just flip over a leaf rake and use it like a shovel.  Wow.  No more bending.  My back applauded!


The leaves were bone dry and crispy so the nylon string shredder had no problem whizzing through them.  It reduced the leafs to maybe a 1/3 or even 1/4. 


Every 4 tubs I'd stop and haul the shreds out to the now-weeded ring bed.  At this reduction I figured straight off I wouldn't have enough to do the whole ring, so for now I just made sure all existing plants got well mulched.


The day went on.  In the end I got 18+ bins of out of the pile.  What with shredding, hauling, mulching and then cleanup I was at it for nearly 5 hours.  


Finally the last tarp was folded away and the remaining leaf litter put into compost.  Not a bad day's work.  And the ring bed?  Since the leaves had reduced as much as they did I only got slightly less than 2/3 of it mulched. (As I recall last year the shreds were coarser and reduced less than 1/2 so they went further as mulch.)

So now I have to wait for the sweet gums and silver maples to drop their load.  Then I'll just vac them up with the mower.  Hopefully I'll have enough then to finish the bed, but I dunno.  It looks dicey at this point.  We'll see....

(P.S.  Mom sure won't be getting the wacker back! LOL Mine-mine-mine!)


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12 comments:

  1. I want a leaf shreader! Such a wonderful tool for instant mulch.

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  2. Michelle - I hear ya! This one only shreds dry and crispy leaves. The few wet ones that slipped in kinda clogged it. But otherwise...this is a keeper. They don't make them anymore but I've seen them on Craig's list and other places. I'll be glad when leaf season is over though! *woof* :-D

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  3. I'm envious! Maybe I should build one some day...hmmm....

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  4. EG - you go guy! Or maybe when you catch a bunch of squirrels in your new trap you could just turn them loose in a big bag of leaves. ;-D

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  5. OMG this is sooooo awesome!! Where can I get one of these? EG, you so have to build one!

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  6. Good grief! And you waited 6 years to try it :-) Bet you wish you had made use of the shredder way long back, huh, Kris?
    Love the leaf mulch, as always.

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  7. meemsnyc - Google search it. They are out there for sale.

    Ha Xuan - Well, see, before I didn't have a big pile of leaves to do all at once. My own leaf blower/vac works fine smaller piles like I usually have. So this year was the right time to try it and it sure worked great! Hey - better late than never! ;-D

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  8. I saw one of these at a garage sale just last week and almost bought it. But Hubs said he didn't think it'd work very well. It was only $10. Dang! I wish I'd gone ahead and got it!

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  9. Ilene - oooooooh. And, had you bought it, I could have send you a big ball of nylon line refills. I've got a wad as big as a basketball. LOL

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  10. Wow, I don't think we have anything like this in the UK!

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  11. Linda - condolences... :-\

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