Kevin's Watch

Do you use the grass catcher on your lawnmower or do you just pull the cord and cut?

I do both but lately I've been in such a rush I go without the catcher and I'm beginning to feel a little guilty.

Should I?

I put a mulching blade on mine and keep the bag off until the leaves start to fall.
The mulching blade chops it up so you don't even see the cut grass.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, unless your grass grows like crazy...

If I lived in a milder climate I'd be Mr. Yard Guy but 93 degrees and 100% humidity makes being thorough tough. I know you have it pretty hot, danlo but at least it's kind of dry. My sister lives in Arizona and says she's thrilled to be free of the humidity. If I use the grass catcher I have to stop when I'm finished with the front yard to empty the thing before I can move on to the back. If I stop to do that I'll lose half my body weight in sweat.

Certainly know where you're coming from aTOMiC. I used to live in south-east Texas, and you pretty much described the weather there for June and July. Then it gets REALLY hot in August, but it's the humidity that makes it so miserable.

Danlo's got the right idea. Mulching blade FTW!

Another tip is to mow your grass at high noon. If the sun is out it can kill the little wounded ends of the blades. I've heard it inhibits growth, if you can survive doing it.

stutt

Stutty wrote:
Another tip is to mow your grass at high noon. If the sun is out it can kill the little wounded ends of the blades. I've heard it inhibits growth, if you can survive doing it.

stutt

Yes. "If you can survive doing it" is the key. Perhaps the use of some kind of cool suit. Of course if I could afford a cool suit I'd just have some Landscape company cut my grass.

You could always buy a goat, and train it to eat down to a certain height.

Barring that, a mulching lawnmower is OK, but you have to keep the blade sharp or it shreds your lawn. That of course means you never mow while the grass is wet. In my experience, you get a better-looking lawn by mowing and bagging - but apparently this isn't as good for the environment... fertilizing the controlled growth of your lawn just so you can mow it to a uniform height and throw it away? It's all silliness when you think about it that way.

Or you could do what I do - find an enterprising teenager that will do the main mow-and-bag, and follow after him to do the detail work. You both finish at the same time (but half the time). Plus, being out there while he is means you get slightly better service out of him. Find the right teen and you may not even get price gouged

dw

Dukkha. A goat? Now that is an awesome idea however I doubt my wife or my home owners association would approve.

Great idea working around your teenage mower while he/she performs his/her task. A stroke of genius really.

Don't have one on my mower at all.

dlbpharmd wrote:Don't have one on my mower at all.

Oh jeeze. You are just an anarchist! You must not have a Mrs. Kravitz peering out of her front window yelling "Frank! He's mowing without the grass catcher again. Get our camera!"

aTOMiC wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote:Don't have one on my mower at all.

Oh jeeze. You are just an anarchist! You must not have a Mrs. Kravitz peering out of her front window yelling "Frank! He's mowing without the grass catcher again. Get our camera!"

I use the blower to clean off my driveway out into the street too.

dlbpharmd wrote:

aTOMiC wrote:

dlbpharmd wrote:Don't have one on my mower at all.

Oh jeeze. You are just an anarchist! You must not have a Mrs. Kravitz peering out of her front window yelling "Frank! He's mowing without the grass catcher again. Get our camera!"

I use the blower to clean off my driveway out into the street too.

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGH! OUTCAST! UNCLEAN!

It's far, far better for the lawn to mulch the clippings....Keeps the nutrients in your yard and helps prevent the lawn from drying out.

I usually bag about once a month - mostly when I get in trouble for allowing grass clippings to be dragged into the house. The lawn does look better without the clippings on it, and even when I use my mulcher, I still get some clippings. Maybe I need a new mulcher.

Hate it, hate it, hate it! I need to empty it 5 or six times for one mowing, so I used it twice and forgot about it. Anyway, the driest end may and beginning of june here (on record) has made mowing unnecessary, since my lawn went from ugly patchy green to ugly patchy yellow. Pestilence to dessert sun, if you will. However, since precipitation has started again, it has become necessary to mow once every two weeks, just to keep the nighbours off my back

My lawn is mostly moss, dandeelions and a few rare Carex species. I once tried to remove the moss on one square foot of my lawn. What was left was brown podsoil and 5 (five!) measly plants (Poa sp.).

If you get the idea, that I'm not much of a garden person you are completely correct.

My family uses a push mower, and we don't bag the clippings at all.

Auleliel wrote:My family uses a push mower, and we don't bag the clippings at all.

Same here. Plus the clippings help keep the lawn healthy.

In the spring and fall, if you let the lawn get to high, then when you mulch it you can still get big clumps of cut grass which, if you don't rake them, end up killing the grass underneath. And, in the spring and fall, the grass gets too tall if you don't mow every five days. At least up here in New England, which is where everything grows fast before it snows.

I mulch when I can, especially right after fertilizing, but if the grass is too tall, you gotta bag it.

Anyone use the clippings in the vegetable garden to keep down weeds? I hear it works.

Another thing is, push mowers seem to be getting dweebier and dweebier. If you don't by a model that has at least self-propelled (and I don't) then they seem to think you have a tiny lawn, and they give you a tiny bag. Yay. More trips to the compost pile.

Thank gods my lawn is in my back yard, that way the neighbors can't see my latest crop of "tomato" plants.