I love my new garden toy.  It’s a Toro Ultra Plus leaf blower, vacuum and mulcher all in one.  I spent a few hours in a client’s garden today sucking up leaves with the vacuum attachment, then dumping the leaf bag full of finely mulched leaves onto her gardens.  I then covered the mulched leaves with a commercially prepared triple mix of soil, peat moss and compost.  This procedure is a great method for improving the quality of the soil in your gardens, especially if your soil is full of clay like most soil here in the Kanata suburb of Ottawa…

I also discovered, inadvertently,  if you forget to zip up the leaf bag after emptying it, the leaves you suck up off the lawn will get mulched as they enter the bag, then go right through the bag back onto the lawn.  I might try this on my own lawn, as mulched leaves are great for lawns too!

I researched this type of garden tool before purchasing the Toro Ultra Plus.  I chose an electric one as I did not want to be hauling oil or gasoline around in my van.  The battery operated ones were an option, but we have several battery operated tools at the cottage and the batteries always seem to need recharging, not to mention the batteries are expensive. The electric Toro Ultra Plus that I decided on was awesome to use; not too heavy (about 10 pounds), easy to assemble, and not too loud. The mulch came out incredibly fine; I estimate one bag of mulched leaves is the equivalent of at least 4 regular lawn bags.

With the beautiful weather we are experiencing this week, I hope to get a few gardens prepared for spring using this method, including my own. Perhaps I will do the lawn too…