Rake the Leaves or Leave the Leaves Debate

Winter came a little early here in Central Minnesota.  No one expected this.  I for one have quite a few things that I needed to do before this snow happened.  Not happy!  One of the things is the leaves on the lawn.  The leaves haven't even all fallen off the trees yet!  This is not an ideal situation.  It's only October.  We aren't supposed to have this weather for at least another month or so.

But here comes the question- should the leaves be cleared off the lawn every Fall or not?  Well, there are pros and cons to each situation.  

Leaving your leaves on your lawn actually gives some nutrients to the lawn, and actually provide some shelter for some animals and is good for the environment.  But you do need to spread them out, and make sure there aren't any big piles of them anywhere, and it's probably a good idea to mulch them up with the lawn mower.

Here's the issue.... there's snow on top of the leaves.  This isn't ideal.  But it's not the end of the world.

There is another school of thought... leaves are bad for our rivers, streams and lakes. So, if they end up in the storm drains, this is can lead to some water quality issues.  So, if you are going to leave the leaves (some of us might have a choice if the snow doesn't melt) then at least clean them out from the storm drain areas. This will at least help in that area.

Bottom line, even though the early snow has hindered the Fall clean up situation, it's  not the worst thing.  It just won't look as nice, and be as easy to clean up in the Spring.  Let's just hope this snow doesn't last thing long... I'm not ready for Winter.