Put down the rake! Your lawn wants you to mow the fall leaves, expert says

One regional expert says that tedious chore of raking leaves can be left until the end of fall.

“It’s actually kind of disgusting how easy this can be,” said Mike Goatley, an extension turf grass specialist and professor in the Virginia Tech School of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

Now bear in mind, if your community asks you to rake leaves to the curb so a machine can come by, suck them up, and eventually turn them into mulch or compost, this advice might not apply. But if you’re raking and bagging just so all those leaves end up in a landfill somewhere, then put the rake down and get out your lawnmower instead.

“When we return those leaves by chopping them up, we basically are giving something that’s going to be more readily broken down in the soil by the microbes that live there,”