When my fella and I bought our house last year, we tried to make thoughtful decisions as we accessorized our new lives -- years of editing Umbra have left me with little choice. So we bought a reel mower -- completely manual, no gas, no cord, just a few blades and some sweat.
And I'm here to report: Our mower sucks. It rattles. It doesn't cut all that well. It completely misses the tall, thin weeds that have populated our lawn this spring, so that even after a fresh cut it looks like we haven't touched the thing for weeks. Honestly, I don't want to care that I have a scraggly lawn -- but I've started to feel self-conscious.
I half expect a formerly-kindly neighbor to wander over at any moment and chastise us for lawn neglect. We already had one wonder if we "couldn't afford a real mower" and confess that she had considered loaning us her gas mower out of pity.
Did we get a lousy brand, or are reel mowers just an overrated option? If I could afford a cordless electric mower, I might give that a shot. But meanwhile, we struggle with our blades -- and I have to say, I understand why people conform. When we hear the sound of gas mowers firing up throughout our neighborhood each weekend, there's a certain subconscious comfort to be found in that recognizable ritual.
Advice on mowers, reel mowing techniques, and resisting small-town lawn pressure welcome.
Getting to know the neighborhood — through its trash
Taking coal back to the garden
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David Roberts Posted 3:17 am
30 May 2008
cords
We bought a used, corded electric mower for a steal from a neighbor. I was sure the cord would be a pain in the ass, but it's actually not so bad. You can even get a new one for around $150.
The long-term strategy -- for us anyway -- is to get rid of as much lawn as possible and plant drought-resistant plants where it used to be. That's because
I friggin' hate mowingwe love the earth.grist.org
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KenG Posted 3:29 am
30 May 2008
Reelin'
As a long time manual mower user, I sympathize. A reel mower works great with two conditions:
You have is regularly sharpened (by a professional unless you are trained).
You have a healthy, thick, mostly grass yard.
I had great success with a yard that had rich topsoil and that I carefully fertilized and hand weeded on a regular basis. The reel mower worked like a charm.
I now have only a little lawn by the road, having gone natural on most of the property. That patch of lawn is "pasture like" and mowing it is a two step process - one pass with the reel mower to take care of the grass and one pass with a weedwhacker to take care of the rest.
Either commit yourself to intensive lawn buildup (which may or may not be possible depending on your location) or put out the cash for an electric mower. The price is coming down on the electric machines.
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Tom Philpott Posted 3:34 am
30 May 2008
Moss: the way forward?
From recent Times piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/garden/01moss.html?em&a ...
(I refuse to hand-make links--I'm holding out for WSYGL or whatever it's called.)
You gotta have shade, tho'.
Victual Reality
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sunflower Posted 3:52 am
30 May 2008
Let it grow
Our grass is now a meter high. By mid July it will lay down a golden brown.
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Mike M Posted 3:56 am
30 May 2008
Reel Mowers
I have been mowing my lawn with reel mowers for about 20 years now. A big shady lawn in Indiana and a blazing hot and humid bermuda lawn in Mississippi. My favorite is a vintage (1960s?) sears mower, built like a tank. Also have a more modern, light-weight 7-blade mower designed for thicker bermuda grass. That one worked well for the first 5 or 6 years but is beginning to wear out.
I bought a german electric motor (Li-ion battery) assisted mower - lasted only a year or so.
Reel mowers are "appropriate technology" manageable, understandable and fixable by normal humans.
Keys are
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sindark Posted 4:32 am
30 May 2008
Better than a Roomba
From what I have seen, goats and sheep do an excellent job of keeping grass neatly trimmed...
a sibilant intake of breath
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Sean Casten Posted 4:34 am
30 May 2008
Get a goat
And when the grass stops growing the fall... think goat roast.
(Only slightly joking. We have a steep hill that can't be mowed because of the pitch but is full of various grasses. We scythe it a couple times a year, which is great exercise, if a tad feudal. And the goat idea comes up every time we start grimly reaping.)
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redwing Posted 5:08 am
30 May 2008
Get a book, get drunk! (if your into that)
Don't mow! drink beer instead.
Go buy an edible / medicinal plants book and start labeling plants in your yard. Most of the "weeds" are edible / medicinal. Get some big stone pavers and make a path, a nice plant walk thru your yard. If you put good labels / markers people could walk your yard to learn about local plants. Put up a sign or something, so your neighbors know your not just lazy.
(certified wild back yard thru nwf: https://secure.nwf.org/backyard/certify.cfm?campaignid=WH08FWW1)
Mulch the heck out of some areas where you want to plant some fruit trees / garden. Get free pine mulch from someone with pine trees and way too many pine needles. (Trust me they will let you rake for free). Next step learn how to brew beer and wine. Final step, get drunk on your front yard : I use blackberry's, elderberry, apples, and much more for wine and I use the yarrow and hops planted in my front yard for my own beer. mmm beer (it all comes full circle).
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:19 am
30 May 2008
Get a Black and Decker electric mower
for a couple hundred bucks. They have a simple adjustment lever for mulching. Do not get a cordless one unless you want to buy a new battery every few years.
The cord is no big deal. I've never hit my chord in two decades. If you do, you can fix it or buy another for ten bucks.
And do what Dave says, get rid of as much lawn as possible with native ground cover. Letting your lawn grow whatever it wants works as long as you don't mind pissing off your unenlightened neighbors. Lawns are highly overrated.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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PermieWriter Posted 6:01 am
30 May 2008
Sheep and goats
I love the idea of native plants out front. We mulched heavily and planted butterfly bush, elderberry bushes and Maximillian sunflower. But we didn't have lawn to start with, just hard-packed clay.
Think of goats as high-powered mowers. They'll eat everything (mostly, they don't seem to like ivy), including berry brambles, the bark off your trees and all growing things down to the ground. Sheep crop things nicely (including making your trees flat-bottomed). They're the ones that made lush, green lawns popular, after all.
The key to using either is to rotate them - only let them have one bite of any particular plant, otherwise they'll kill whatever is growing there. That's fine if you want to kill a nasty stand of thistle, but probably not what you want for your lawn.
Our lawn-having best friends have had luck with a fairly powerful mower that renders the trimmings into a powder and deposits them evenly over the lawn. Instant fertilizer!
Eat what you grow, grow what you eat
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Tasermons Partner Posted 6:08 am
30 May 2008
Certified backyard wildlife habitat...
...convert your yard into a backyard habitat. Requires some maintenance, of course (weeding, planting, etc.) but very little mowing.
And of course, the birds and insects will love it!
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tdmeeh Posted 8:08 am
30 May 2008
Keep it up
I think that you are doing great. Its not your mower that needs to change (though it may need sharpening), it's our expectation for what cut grass ought to look like.
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Peter Donovan Posted 8:41 am
30 May 2008
edges
Do your best mowing around the edges. That is what your neighbors will see the easiest. If it's neatly mowed around the edges, and sort of gradually builds up toward the middle, it still will look pretty good.
The electric portable netting made by Premier Fence Co. and Kenlove will contain sheep and goats nicely, it's easy to move, and offers a pretty good defense against neighborhood dogs if you connect it to a good energizer.
soilcarboncoalition.org
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Hal 9000 Posted 9:03 am
30 May 2008
Check Craig's List
We are avid gardeners with something close to a standard city lot (roughly 50 x 120 feet). We took out all of our front yard "lawn" (south facing and on a slope so it was mostly weeds anyway) and replaced it with landscaping. Our back yard is north facing and we have a small shaped and relatively flat area of grass bounded by gardens there. We went on the "buy nothing new" kick in 2006 and found a Brill reel mower for sale on Craig's List not far from our house for $100. It's perfect for us. It is best to mow frequently as tall grass is hard to manage, but this machine cuts beautifully and manual mowing is good exercise.
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/brillux33sma.html
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zach Posted 11:04 am
30 May 2008
frugalbabe had a nice post
this site here has a nice article on how to landscape your garden so that it has minimal/no maintenance.
I used to own a manual and yes, if you don't take care of it, it won't work. Much like anything else, but the difference is that it has a kind of Americana feel to it. Once you learn how.
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kmp Posted 11:12 am
30 May 2008
And eBay
In the infrequent times that I've needed it, I've always found great deals on eBay. You might find someone who is getting rid of their mower (hopefully adopting a mow-free existence!) and just wants it out of their garage and into hands that will use it.
I wish we had that option - I rent a cottage in the country, and the landlord has a yard service that comes EVERY FRIDAY, sometime around 8:30am, and mows the yard, whether it needs it or not. Luckily, they do not put down any type of fertilizer, but I deal with the leaf-blower, tractor mower and weed-wacker noise of 5 guys roaming my yard for about 45 min every Friday. Frankly, I wish they would just let it grow for a few weeks....
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kinz1j Posted 3:40 pm
01 Jun 2008
Working through it
For the past four seasons, I have mowed my lawn with a Scotts Classic reel mower with some succees, but can sympathize with your frustration.
From what I can tell, any grass or weed that is higher than the midpoint of the rotating blades can be pushed down rather than cut. Also, the wheels tend to push the grass down under them, which sometimes leaves them too low for cutting.
This is what I do to get an acceptable-looking lawn. First, I cut the lawn twice, once in one direction, then perpendicular to the first cut. Cutting in a different direction seems to catch a lot of grass that was missed the first time.
Second, I make sure that the blades are adjusted to cut properly and are sharp. The rattling you report doesn't sound good at all--the Scotts has held up quite well without any rattling. There are sharpening kits available that involve putting paste on the blades and turning the blades backwards--they work fairly well.
Third, if the grass has grown too long, and espcially if there are tall weeds, I get out my gas-powered mower. Sometimes that is the only thing that will get the job done in a reasonable amount of time.
Fourth, I accept that my lawn will never be billiard-table flat like a gas-powered mower lawn
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birdboy Posted 11:00 am
03 Jun 2008
Mine runs on beer
To add to the list of unfortunate facts,
beware the tiny twig-
though it be not so big,
it'll stop you in your tracks.
a liberal in redsville
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