CalPolygardener
I have only had one huge pine in my yard for several years now and just the other day I noticed that one was dead(lightening I think). But I have used pine needles in the garden for many years. I normally just pick mine up from the side of the street where others have gone to the trouble of gathering them, even sometimes bagging them.
But raking them up with a metal leaf rake has normally been fine when I did have to rake them myself. I suppose it depends on how much area you have to gather the pine straw from. Out at the botanical gardens they used a tractor and a mechanical rake, that did a fine job . The Garden allowed the daylily society an allotment of it to spread on our beds. The man with the tractor raked it up in piles next to the daylily beds and it made it much easier and faster than having to use those bales. Everyone working that day much preferred to work with the raked up piles of pine needles over the baled type.
Now if you have a smooth grassy area to work an only a small area, I have had success using my seed fork, and just pushing it along the surface of the ground and collecting the pine straw in piles, then combining the piles. I guess similar to a snow shovel shoveling snow.
