I've got something for you to do this weekend before and after your favorite football team plays. This year is kind of unusual in that leaves have started to fall three weeks earlier than normal. So what do you do with all those leaves on your lawn? For sure you don't want to leave them on the grass. When leaves remain on the soil surface for an extended period of time, several things happen. First, light doesn't get to the grass under those leaves. Second, there is no air circulation so the soil remains wet especially if it rains while the leaves are on the ground. Thirdly, the actual weight of the leaves is detrimental to grass growing properly. So if you allow the leaves on the lawn, you might not even have grass in that area in the spring.

There are two ways to remove leaves from your lawn. First, you can rake them off which is the most popular but time consuming (and tiresome for many). Then you can actually mulch them into the lawn itself. I prefer the latter. Most of the lawn mowers today are actually mulching mowers. By that I mean it cuts the grass and at the same time returns the grass clippings to the soil surface. With some mowers, you might need to attach the metal guard where the grass comes out if you have a traditional mower. Keep this in mind, you don't want to mulch too many leaves with a mower because you can have the same problems as leaving the leaves on the lawn as I just mentioned. I would say that if you mulched enough leaves that you could see 50 percent of the grass underneath, you have mulched enough with your mower. The remaining leaves that fall later need to be raked and disposed of properly.

It's disposing of leaves or better yet composting them into quality compost that's so essential for a quality landscape.