Mulching yard waste

[Ashful]

Our yard produces an insane amount of waste, and we don't have any very large wooded area to just make a dump pile of sufficient size for what we are generating. I've been grinding up leaves with gator blades on my mower, and directing them into some of the larger gardens around the property perimeter, and that has worked fairly well for all of the leaves generated by the roughly 100 deciduous trees in our yard.

But we are also generating at least two pickup truck loads per month of shrub trimmings, pruned perennials, spent annuals, and tree trimmings. I've been burning all of it for several years, but it's a poor solution. I'm wondering what would be involved in trying to mulch all of this waste, and what would result from this process. I'm also more than a little concerned with the amount of space such an endeavor might consume, to do it right.

I don't collect grass clippings, and all sod or topsoil goes into a separate pile, so this is really just leafy and sticky stuff. About two pickup truck loads of splitter swarf and bark could be included with this, or I could continue to burn that separately from the garden waste. I should also point out I have a front end loader, so flipping, rolling, or rotating bins should not be a problem.

 

[gthomas785]

Something's not adding up in my head. You must have a pretty big yard to generate all that waste, but can't find room for a stick pile anywhere?

Anyway if I were faced with this challenge I'd get a chipper. Run everything through it into a pile and hopefully the size is manageable once it's chipped. Turn it over once or twice a year and get the piles in a 2 or 3 year rotation. Mix in some wood ash while you're at it. After it's broken down spread it on all the garden beds and in the lawn.

 

[EbS-P]

PTO chipper. Build a two bay compost site like the landscape companies use for stone and mulch but sized to fit. Alternatively you could just chip into the woods. Or grass.
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[begreen]

Does your municipal waste facility or public works have a yard waste collection that sends it to be composted? Inquire if they have a Fall leaves and Spring cleanup program. If not, set up a good composting station on the property. Properly done, it will create black gold that the gardens will love.

 

[Ashful]

A hammer shredder, or combo chipper shredder, maybe. A regular chipper isn't going to shred garden waste. Been there, many years ago.

Already looking at that as a potential option, but I'd still want to mulch anything coming off of it, before laying it in beds. Green material in beds tends to leach up Nitrogen and other nutrients during decomposition, as well as potentially spreading funguses and disease .

Something's not adding up in my head. You must have a pretty big yard to generate all that waste, but can't find room for a stick pile anywhere?

Property used to be 11 acres with plenty of dump sites, but now pared down to 4 acres, which other than the wood splitting area is all manicured lawn and gardens. So yes, without some reconfiguration, there's not presently much space left for a major mulching operation. We also have a ton of frontage, being sort of the anchor house for the neighborhood, with curb appeal considerations eliminating a lot of the potential spaces that could be used for this operation. But if you must know:

2-3/4 acres finished lawn
1/4 ac. wood storage and splitting area
3/4 ac. manicured gardens
1/4 acre under driveway, house, barn

 

[Ashful]

Does your municipal waste facility have a yard waste collection that sends it to be composted? If not, set up a proper composting station on the property. Properly done, it will create black gold that the gardens will love.

Oops... you posted while I was typing my last response. We have no municipal waste, it's all privatized. I think I can arrange for them to take yard waste, but I'm not sure where it ends up. There are some private mulching facilities, so hauling it there is an option, but without a dump trailer it's a bit of a challenge. My on-road trailer is enclosed sides, but has no dump function.

It's possible that's my best option, just have my gardener pile it in my trailer instead of on my burn pile, where I presently have him putting it. He usually leaves a pile nearly the size of a Volkswagon beetle, every 3rd week. Just thought if I could mulch it onsite, I might benefit both coming and going, avoiding trips to the mulching plant, avoiding burning, and gaining some useful material from it.

 

[begreen]

I see Landsdale has a public works dept that does fall leave and spring cleanup collections. Otherwise, build a basic 3 bit composting system that is wide enough for your tractor bucket.

 

[Ashful]

Yeah, a lot of the surrounding 'burbs do, but not my township. What's involved in the 3 bin system? Time alone? Do you need to rotate them? I assume it's a bin per year?

 

[ericm979]

Burning is too difficult here due to regulations and fire season. I run a lot of stuff though the 8" PTO chipper but we also compost everything compostable from the large garden, yard and kitchen (except what the chickens get). The finished compost all goes back to the garden.

I also have a smaller PTO chipper/shredder but it's weak on the chipping side so it only gets used for shredding leaves for garden mulch.

Even with that I also have piles made up of stuff that's too big to chip, parts of diseased trees that I don't want to chip for fear of spreading the disease, and chips that I didn't want for something. They rot down slowly.

 

[begreen]

Yes, they get rotated which is easy with your tractor. You want to flip pile #1 into bin #2 so that the bottom of pile #1 becomes the top of pile #2. Let cook and then repeat into Bin #3. Bin #3 is for finishing the compost. This is what gets pulled off to turn into the garden soil.

There are some cool engineering tricks that can hasten the process with forced aeration, but you can also just let nature do the work. It will still compost, just over a longer period of time. Technically, bins are not even required, it could be just piles. What is most important is to mix the stuff going into Bin#1 with the proper ratio of 2 parts browns (carbon stock) to 1 part greens (nitrogen stock) so that it cooks properly. The second most important is moisture content. Lawn clippings and manures are green and fall leaves & sawdust are brown sources. Note that if lawn clippings are used they should not have any herbicides or pesticides in them.

With a proper mix, the cycle from start to finish when outdoor temps are above 50º can be as little as a couple of months. This guy does it in even less time. Chicken manure helps.

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[begreen]

This guy is serious about his compost. The beds are permanent, aerated by blower fed, in-ground piping, and tractor ready. It even has a leachate collection system. He uses the leachate to water and innoculate the piles and as a liquid fertilizer.

 

[Ashful]

Excellent info. Thanks, begreen! I definitely have chicken manure, and coffee grounds, presently I dump both onto my topsoil pile and turn it in at time of use... I guess I've had a "stage 3" bin all along!

Yeah, bins are definitely the way to keep the overall footprint minimized. I wonder if I could get one or two retired small dumpsters, cut them in half and use them to make four bins strong enough to hold up to FEL bucket pressure. Wood bins, especially after a year or three holding compost, is so easy to damage with an FEL.

If I sell some equipment that I no longer use, I could probably make quick room for a 2-bin system, with bins big enough to access with my FEL bucket (60" bucket, so I'd want ~70" bins). Getting up to three bins would probably require me to make them moveable, so I could pick them up with the tractor and set bin 2 behind 1 or 3. I assume you never need to access bin 2, other than when they get rotated, in which case I'd just have to pull them out into the yard to do that operation.

 

[begreen]

Cement block construction works pretty well, so do ECO blocks.

 

[ABMax24]

Maybe it's different down there, but everyone up here just runs mulching blades on their movers and mince it up in little pieces and then let the earthworms and soil bugs do the work.

 

[DBoon]

Maybe it's different down there, but everyone up here just runs mulching blades on their movers and mince it up in little pieces and then let the earthworms and soil bugs do the work.

This is my preferred method, for sure, on my property. But sometimes the tree density in some areas makes it impractical and I need to blow the leaves into a pile and move them elsewhere. Sugar Maples, in particular, can drop a lot of leaves and overwhelm the lawn when mulched by a mower.

Ashful, I am curious about your experiences with a PTO chipper/shredder as I was thinking about getting one to use for my tractor. I need to shred large volumes of leaves, but I'd also like to take care of some of the smaller yard waste. I am sure that it would make short work of woody perennials (e.g., asters, joe pye weed, etc.) but wondering what the largest branch you could get through a PTO chipper/shredder and what size of PTO horsepower chipper/shredder you were using that hit that limit. I've been looking at the Mackissic PTO chipper/shredders.

 

[RockCastile]

If you have that chicken manure in significant quantity relative to your volume of yard waste it'll sure accelerate decomposition (I use my own urine, which basically sends the pile into fast-forward, but maybe a bit too granola tie-dye for your 'hood.) With the quantity of woody tree matter you have I'd probably prioritize equipment that's better on chipping than shredding, that's your richest density of carbon and the longest (forever) to break down if it isn't well grinded before going to pile. If shredding the more herbaceous material is a weak spot, as mentioned above you might come up with a somewhat efficient use of lawnmower as shredder as long as you can rake/collect it without adding more headache than you want.

 

[begreen]

Maybe it's different down there, but everyone up here just runs mulching blades on their movers and mince it up in little pieces and then let the earthworms and soil bugs do the work.

I do this, then use the riding mower to bag up the mulch and I spread it on our garden beds for an overwinter mulch, weed barrier, worm feed, etc. This gets turned into the beds in spring.

 

[ericm979]

This is my preferred method, for sure, on my property. But sometimes the tree density in some areas makes it impractical and I need to blow the leaves into a pile and move them elsewhere. Sugar Maples, in particular, can drop a lot of leaves and overwhelm the lawn when mulched by a mower.

Ashful, I am curious about your experiences with a PTO chipper/shredder as I was thinking about getting one to use for my tractor. I need to shred large volumes of leaves, but I'd also like to take care of some of the smaller yard waste. I am sure that it would make short work of woody perennials (e.g., asters, joe pye weed, etc.) but wondering what the largest branch you could get through a PTO chipper/shredder and what size of PTO horsepower chipper/shredder you were using that hit that limit. I've been looking at the Mackissic PTO chipper/shredders.

I have the largest MacKissick, a TPH 184. It's got some drawbacks.

The chips/shreds drop out the bottom, and it's about 18" to the ground. When the pile of chips reaches the machine it stops working properly. So you have to move the tractor. You can't chip/shred into a trailer, you're going to be shovelling.

The chipper chute is at a steep angle, so you can't put long pieces in. It's a manual feed chipper, so it can be difficult to get the branch to start feeding and when it does, it sucks the branch in really fast. You need to position your hands so they won't go into the chute and turn away so you don't get whacked in the face. The chipper opening is small so you have to trim branches just right. When chipping a branch it tends to eject the last few inches at high speed, so you have to know not to be down range then. The chipper is hard to use so I preferred to use the shredder for material that's small enough. The shredder also does not feed as well as it could, often material gets stuck above the hammers and you need to find a stick to poke it down. Carefully because if you poke too hard it will pull the stick out of your hand.

I've run it on a 16hp tractor with 13hp at the PTO, and that's not really enough but I made it work. I've also run it on a tractor with 32 PTO hp and that's more than enough.

I also have a Woodmaxx 8H 8" hydraulic feed chipper. The power feed is much safer because it works at a predictable speed and you don't need to mess about as much to get stuff to feed. Unlike the MackKissick I can start something feeding and let it chew on it while I go get the next piece. Being larger and power feed there's much less trimming needed to get material in. It will chip much larger diameter material. It's got a chute so you can chip into a trailer or shoot chips into the woods. It costs about the same, within a few hundred $. The one drawback compared to the MackKissick is that there's no shredder. You can't shred leaves or garden waste. It's for branches or brush. It also needs more HP. They say down to 19hp but I'm dubious. I have only run it on the larger tractor and there are times when chipping larger diameter material that I could use more power.

I have 15 acres of woods and another 5 of brush, so there is a lot to chip.

 

[Ashful]

The more I look into this, the time, space, and dollars involved, in addition to the fact that I really don't have much need for the end product, the more I'm backing away from the idea. Probably best for me to just keep burning, and separately buying what I need for mulch products. DIY is great, when you're spending time to save money, but not when you're spending time to lose money... as I believe may be the case, here.

But to answer some of the several questions:

Maybe it's different down there, but everyone up here just runs mulching blades on their movers and mince it up in little pieces and then let the earthworms and soil bugs do the work.

Yes, of course. Already said that. I don't collect grass clippings or downed leaves. That would be an enormous and unnecessary chore on 3 acres of lawn. The questions about composting were specifically for garden waste, and possibly tree/shrub/splitter waste, NOT grass clippings or leaves.

Ashful, I am curious about your experiences with a PTO chipper/shredder as I was thinking about getting one to use for my tractor. I need to shred large volumes of leaves, but I'd also like to take care of some of the smaller yard waste. I am sure that it would make short work of woody perennials (e.g., asters, joe pye weed, etc.) but wondering what the largest branch you could get through a PTO chipper/shredder and what size of PTO horsepower chipper/shredder you were using that hit that limit. I've been looking at the Mackissic PTO chipper/shredders.

Chippers are great for branches, but not much else. If getting a chipper, make sure to go with one with hydraulic feed, assuming your tractor has the auxiliary hydraulics to support it. Manual feed chippers are just flat-out dangerous. Chippers ONLY have knives on a flywheel for chipping, they WILL NOT shred green material.

Shredders are what you need for anything other than branches, eg. the garden waste I'm discussing above. They're available in varous sizes from 24 - 64 hammers, for various speeds and tractor horsepowers. The major down sides to these are that most just dump on the ground (no chute to shoot), and even those that are dual chipper/shredders usually lack hydraulic feed.

MacKissic makes many chipper/shredders, they're one of the leading brands in this dual-purpose type. Many reviews out there.

If you have that chicken manure in significant quantity relative to your volume of yard waste it'll sure accelerate decomposition (I use my own urine, which basically sends the pile into fast-forward, but maybe a bit too granola tie-dye for your 'hood.)

I get a pickup truck load of shrub and garden waste every 3-4 weeks, when the gardener comes thru and does his thing. In that time, I probably get only ~1 gallon of chicken manure, so likely not enough to really have much impact. My pile is in a place where I could piss on it during full foliage (May - September), but not without flashing the neighbors during the remaining months. Not sure how the older couple next door might feel about that.

 

[John Galt]

Brush Hog - rotary mower- just back up to the pile and drop it down. It'll chew up anything underneath. Just like the chippers, they range in price and quality.

Like you were saying, a match is the cheapest option.

 

[begreen]

There are commercial composters in several areas of eastern PA. Are Pottstown or Phoenixville reasonably close by?

 

[ericm979]

Chippers are great for branches, but not much else. If getting a chipper, make sure to go with one with hydraulic feed, assuming your tractor has the auxiliary hydraulics to support it.

Many including mine have their own hydraulic systems so they don't need to use the tractor's.
There's also some with hydrostatic feed like a lawn mower. Both let you adjust the feed rate to match the material size.

 

[Ashful]

Brush Hog - rotary mower- just back up to the pile and drop it down. It'll chew up anything underneath. Just like the chippers, they range in price and quality.

Got one! Was actually planning on selling it, since I no longer use it for its original purpose. I guess it could serve to grind up some of the mess, but I'd need to dedicate an area to the job, not exactly something I'd want to do in the middle of manicured lawn.

Like you were saying, a match is the cheapest option.

Hard to beat a match! My main reason for looking at other options is the amount of smoke that burning this green stuff produces, and proximity of one neighbor to my burn pile. The lay of the land seems to carry my smoke straight toward their open windows and deck, which means I need to plan my burn times very carefully to not ruin their day. I try to be a good neighbor, maybe making up a bit for all the noise my saws and splitter make when I'm processing firewood.

There are commercial composters in several areas of eastern PA. Are Pottstown or Phoenixville reasonably close by?
View attachment 312169

Yeah, there's actually one just down the road from me, less than ten minutes from my house. The person who ran it in the past was such an ass that I swore the place off after my last trip there, but it's possible it's changed hands in the years since then. I don't have a dump trailer, but I do have a landscape trailer that could be shoveled out with a few minutes of work.

 

[semipro]

I'd like to advocate for the idea of strategically placed brush piles to support wildlife.
We've always been quick to burn or chip all of the smaller wood waste into mulch we use around the property.
We've recently started building brush piles in places where they won't be eyesores. Although we have many trees and much undergrowth, brush piles become a haven for small birds.
Our motives aren't selfless though. We've noticed that having more birds around seems to keep flying bug populations down.

 

[stoveliker]

Burning that much green stuff might produce more air pollution than your two BKs do in a full season...