Monday, July 18, 2011

Mowing the lawn is child's play


Saturday was a beautiful sunny one, a perfect day for working in the vegetable garden, but alas the rest of the garden was requiring some long over due attention. Due to a broken down lawn mower we were starting to bring the neighbourhood down with our over grown front lawn (which will one day go). Now I don’t know about you but I had grown tired of motorised lawnmowers. When you go to use them there is never enough fuel. Then they take an undesirable amount of effort to get them started, and some days they just don’t start at all. Then there is the inhalation of petrol fumes and smoke making me feel like my life just got shorter. I had even tried an electric mower but the motor burnt out, and then there was the cable that my daughter cut in half.

For many years I have thought about getting an old fashioned push powered one but have been reluctant. There must be a good reason you don’t see them about any more, right?

So there I was at the hardware store to buy another motorised mower when I saw a push one. I was immediately attracted to it with its price of $70 compared with the $300+ for the others. I spent a good 10 minutes going back and forth thinking “but will it work, and is it going to be too strenuous to use?” But like a sky diver I took the leap and reveled in the thrill of the risk.

“So did it work?” you ask. Yes it did. You occasionally get a sticky upy bit that escapes the blade and you have to go back over it. But other than that I would say it did a job 99% as good as its petrol powered counterpart.


And was it strenuous to use? For the most part not at all. Being so light it only requires a comparable amount of effort as pushing a heavy motorised one. Of course if the grass is well over grown it does take some work, but for regular maintenance I see it being a breeze. Hay, my 6 year old son can do it (see above). Now this I am very pleased about. I would have never let him mow the lawns with a motorised one. Even though I would strongly recommend supervision as it still could cause a good cut but I can’t see it being able to take off a toe, it can’t even cut through small twigs.

My only complaint is it has a very small catcher, so there are a lot more trips to the compost.

So now I have a cost effective, compact, reliable, easy to start, environmentally friendly, child powered law trimming device. How does yours compare?

BTW It doesn’t require the blade to be sharpened as I thought it would, apparently self sharpening.

12 comments:

  1. I have one of those too, not exactly the same, but a push one. I love mine. The only thing is that you can't let the grass grow to high or it becomes to hard to mow. So much better for the environment too.

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  2. dirtandflowers I love mine too. Now I never thought I would say that about a lawn mower.

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  3. OMG I'm excited. I have always been a fan of mowing lawns due to my childhood memories. School holidays always meant I was able to spend a fun day with Dad at work, which was on the road as a Jims Mower. At the age of 6 I was mowing lawns and loved it. The elderly adored me and they would always praised me even if i did do a terrible job, plus I got paid.

    So this comes as exciting news as I always find manual labour a lot more rewarding than motorised. e.g. remember those old push along vacuums?? granted that they didn't work as well as motorised, but weren't they fun!

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  4. amydingley beautiful comment. I am glad I triggered a childhood memory. And yes I do remember those vacuums, oh, I want one of those now.

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  5. Oooooooooooooh I have been looking for a push one but they aren't sold at my local hardware store

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  6. Mrs Bok mine is light and came in a very respectable size box that I think postage would be reasonable. You maybe able to order one online or from ebay.

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  7. Thanks for the insight, I have always thought of getting one but knew noone that actually had one and didnt know if the results would be okay. I dont care about perfect as I hope to have less and less lawn! I might go check them out tomorrow. Ta!

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  8. Lisa I posted this thinking there might be someone out there in my exact situation. I wish I had discovered this a long time ago. This has taught me a big lesson to trust my thoughts and not make assumptions based on what is commonly done. I even had my neighbour come over and offer me his petrol mower when he saw me out the front. He assumed it must have been hard work ignoring the fact that I was not at all short of breath. I hope you enjoy the smoke free experience as refreshing as I have.

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  9. That's it, train them young! :)

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  10. It's good to see more people using the push mowers - less CO2 & other GHG emissions from petrol and even electric mowers (I have a quiet electric mower.) The other thing to consider s to get rid of all or most of your lawn IF POSSIBLE, as they are quite useless from a permaculture perspective. They steal huge amounts of water from gardens, are time consuming to maintain and unproductive as far as being edible (unless you score a few edible weeds or plant edible lawns, such as thyme and other herbs.) Even with push mowers, a cut lawns releases a lot of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), so consider minimising your lawn space or growing gardens instead of lawns. Food for thought!

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  11. PS: On my blog, in the Green Thumbs section, there is some good info on chooks and lawns, etc. Easier to drect you there instead of cutting and pasting it all here. Dean

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  12. Green Dean totally agree. You may have noticed "which will one day go" in my post. My front lawn is earmarked to become an orchard.

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