Lawn Mowing

[flatwater]

Bookwormom Raise an interesting statement about Lawn mowing in the states. Are we stupid or what? We (the US ) spends millions on furtilizers , tons of water , all sorts of money on lawn mowers not to mention The gas and time to mow and for what ? My next move there will be no lawn just terraced garden Just think of the money we would save in not having a lawn.
Flatwater

[ms-woman]

Well I agree my yard isn't much, just an open space under a giant oak that's not fit for growing anything. It is a good place for my kids to play though. Everything else has something useful growing. When it needs mowed I stake a cow or goat out :) The neighbors do the same for their yard, except they use horses, we all get free fertilizer! The only person on our road that worries about the yard is my father-in-law and I don't know what's wrong with him ???

[Drawbar]

Wait it gets worse...not only do homeowners use gasoline and fertilizer to keep a nice tidy home, they end up using more fertilizer then the farmers do. Not only as a whole, but homeowners tend to Over-Fertilize where us farmers tend to use just what is needed. (hey its a business).

Now I am a conventional farmer so I have no problems using urea and other synthetic nitrogen fertilizers along with cow manure, but using more then what is needed does NOT make for a greener lawn or field, it makes for pollution since it just runs off what cannot be absorbed.

I won't be getting rid of my lawn anytime soon though. Its silly from an economic standpoint, but I do like the openness around my place and the fire break from the woods if there was ever a forest fire here.

[walls0stone]

The wife and I were once renters...and the prior renters had not kept up the lawn. they'd let the grass get a foot tall, then cut. with all that cover, you can imagine the snakes and critters I had to deal with for a year.

I do my lawn with a push mower every other time...and don't use anything on the lawn other than chickeen coop cleanings

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

This is a topic I love! ;D
Why would anyone purposely fertilize a lawn to Grow? That just creates more Work. I've often thought of filling my broadcaster with rocksalt and applying before a good rain. Wife doesn't like the idea. She wants something semi-green. My offer of painting it green with RustOleam didn't fly, either. She says not good for the Ozone but feeds me refried beans.
I guess if the neighbors find my Dandelions, Clover and wild Onions offensive... they can move. I was here first. >:(

[Fred_47460]

This is a topic I love! ;D
Why would anyone purposely fertilize a lawn to Grow? That just creates more Work. I've often thought of filling my broadcaster with rocksalt and applying before a good rain. Wife doesn't like the idea. She wants something semi-green. My offer of painting it green with RustOleam didn't fly, either. She says not good for the Ozone but feeds me refried beans.
I guess if the neighbors find my Dandelions, Clover and wild Onions offensive... they can move. I was here first. >:(


Ha Ha....Amen Brother!!

My wife seriously fought me on using the fancy "landscaped" areas of our new house for tomatoes, hot peppers and green beans. Man...I said "Hot Peppers look pretty too"....but in the end, I only got about a third of the area. The ONLY real reason to try to keep grass healthy here is the land is so hilly. We already had one landslide (cost me $10K to keep the garage/house from sliding down the hill), I wouldn't want any more unplanned movements of Earth 'round here!!!

And as for refried beans.....OH MAN!!! I love beans mixed up with corn meal and fried....then add some salt and pepper and get ready for some good eatin!!! 'Course....you might wanna stay away from me afterwords ;D

Fred

[kerryms]

I took a Master Gardeners class and most of it was what chemical to use for growing or killing plants ::) I did learn a little but I believe I could have saved the money if I had found this site sooner.I don't want lawn of the year,just some advice on how to grow things.

[MooseToo]

when you live in the boonies you do need a fairly broad expanse of mowed grass (weeds, whatever) to allow you to see the snakes before they see you -

[walls0stone]

when you live in the boonies you do need a fairly broad expanse of mowed grass (weeds, whatever) to allow you to see the snakes before they see you -
and to allow anything that eats snakes to see them wile I'm away

[Shamrock1121]

When we designed our new yard 2 years ago, we only have one small patch of grass in the front, and by necessity, a 10-foot strip of lawn on the easement for access to underground utilities at the back. We topdress the lawn with a layer of compost (we make ourselves) and our neighbor, who had his lawn done by the same landscape company, same seed, at the same time as ours, doesn't understand why ours looks better....

This year we retired our 12-year old gas-powered mower and got a Battery-Powered Neuton Mower. It's almost like a pet, it's so cute ;)

Sweeping sidewalks, rock walkways, laundry patio (for the umbrella clothes line, vegetable/herb garden on the south side, decorative fence lined with edible landscaping and drought tolerant plants... And river rock - lots of river rock.

Installed rain barrels so we can water everything from them, including that patch of grass.

We're going to reduce the lawn in the front by 20-25% and plant some native drought-tolerant plants like we have in the back yard. We'll just divide plants from the back for those in the front.

-Karen

[mom]

I bout an electric mower several years ago because I had a small lawn, lived alone and it was small enough for me to pick up by myself. Now that we are back in Texas and I have a mate, we still use it. $4.00+/gallon to mow my lawn - I don't think so. We don't have much grass, just in the shady spots and of course there is always the grass that we have to fight in the garden and the flower beds. Water it? Fertilize it? I DON'T THINK SO. Just makes more work. What grows on it's own, grow but I am not going to help it.

[CatherineID]

We once owned a small suburban house on a tiny lot (60x100). We didn't have an inground sprinkler system and had to mow with a small corded electric mower. It was harder to take care of than the acre of grass we have now (about half is pasture grass, the rest surrounds the house). Now we have a sprinkler system that gets water from our surface irrigation system ($75 a year). Fertilizer is already in that water because it is a system shared with the farmers from the north. We mow with a riding lawn mower - zip, zip and it is done. SO much better.

I'm a die-hard lover of a carpet of green. I won't apologize for it.

[Av8rTx]

My mower must be very efficient. I have a small front yard, steeply terraced, most of the back yard is dedicated to a gravel driveway and garden. But I managed all last season mowing x2 a month with 1 tank of gas-about 1/2 gallon.
I don't fertilize or even water much except whatever water the grass gets from watering the vegetables. The yard won't win any awards or make any magazine covers but it is clean attractive and well kept with almost no effort.

[flatwater]

OK I think maybe artificial turf would do the trick for those who think they need a lawn :D ;D :D
Flatwater

[Drawbar]

I guess I am confused. In one sentence you say...

Why would anyone purposely fertilize a lawn to Grow? That just creates more Work.

And yet in the next sentence...

I've often thought of filling my broadcaster with rocksalt and applying before a good rain. Wife doesn't like the idea.

I'm kind of thinking you are thinking the rock salt would kill the grass, but in fact you would just be fertilizing it. Rock salt is calcium, and calcium is a mineral that soil really needs. It depends upon the soil of course, but most soil that requires lime also requires calcium. To that end, lime is almost always included with calcium so that you get both during a lime application.

It really does wonders for making the grass grow. Since I live in Maine and they use a lot of salt on the roads to get rid of the ice, every spring my lawn greens up really fast where the snow plows spray that salt onto my lawn.

As for the clover and dandelions I agree with you on that. people don't understand that clover and dandelions have deep tap roots that bring minerals from below the soil up to the upper layer where grass roots grow. In essence letting these weeds grow (really legumes) help fertilize your lawn. Clover especially, it is one of very few plants that actually draw nitrogen from the air and bring it down to the soil. (Alphalpha is another).

So its crazy, some people spray these "weeds" and then wonder why they have to fertilize their lawns every year.

[walls0stone]

wouldn't no water = no grow...salt, hot days...dead grass.

[AlchemyAcres]

less lawn...more food...it just makes sense.



And a lot less bitchin' about where the latest salmonella outbreak came from.

Hopefully the genius "rulers" will eventually figure it out. ::)


~Martin

[Drawbar]

wouldn't no water = no grow...salt, hot days...dead grass.

Nope. First of all he said "right before a good rain", which would dissolve some of the salt (calcium) letting it leach into the soil where it would start the fertilization process.

But rock salt (calcium) is a slow dissolving type of fertilizer. Its really one of its great benefits, you can apply it and three or four years later still be getting the benefits out of it, unlike nitrogen which is a one shot, one year type fertilizer.

You would have to apply so much rock salt in order to kill a lawn that it would not be worth it. Basically you would have to change the soil so that it was so alkaloid that grass would not grow. Not very likely with todays acid rain that constantly taking the soil back to a lower PH level.

If anything my lawn should be killed by rock salt. I live on a hill and the town has to put the salt to the road in order to get the logging trucks up the hill in the winter. That's a lot of salt and yet my lawn is the greenest next to the road, not dead.

[wy0mn]

When I was a kid...
some of the older folks had hard packed dirt yards around the house. Of course, a couple of the houses I grew up in had floors to match.
One old lady had a wooden maul, every Sunday afternoon she'd be out there thumping & tamping.
Me, I just want to do some common sense yardening; growing edibles around the house. I'll be hauling water to my place & the wildlife don't encroach upon my place... I've encroached upon theirs.

[MadTripper]

As far as rock salt goes, I know when we make icecream and I toss the leftover water/ice/salt mix into any grass area, it dies. Granted that is a large concentration but it is just like I poured bleach or gas on that spot.

My father always said, when you buy a house or build, get on your mower and start mowing around the house and other objects. When 1 hour is up, that is your lawn. I didn't quite follow that rule but with my 38" zero turn, it takes me about 1 hour and 45 minutes. If I use the 6ft finishing mower, I would have a much larger lawn. We don't do any kind of lawn care where I am with the exception of mowing. I like to keep the snakes and other pests at bay and it also gives the chickens a nice area to run around on. Not to mention, the kids enjoy running around and riding bikes in that area.

Tripper

[bee_pipes]

...I'm kind of thinking you are thinking the rock salt would kill the grass, but in fact you would just be fertilizing it. Rock salt is calcium, and calcium is a mineral that soil really needs. It depends upon the soil of course, but most soil that requires lime also requires calcium. To that end, lime is almost always included with calcium so that you get both during a lime application.

It really does wonders for making the grass grow. Since I live in Maine and they use a lot of salt on the roads to get rid of the ice, every spring my lawn greens up really fast where the snow plows spray that salt onto my lawn.


No, rock salt is sodium chloride. Your road department must be using calcium chloride - another ice melter that works down to lower temperatures. Salt will kill most plants.

Regards,
Pat

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

Drawbar. Pat.
Thx guys. I needed that. Now, PLEASE HELP ME CONVINCE THE WIFE!!!!

Just kidding. :P

[walls0stone]

if fuel is the issue. then get one of those older, ground driven mowers and just keep it short so that the critters don't move in...or could'nd you just fence it off and put in a bird that eats grass? say some gease.

[Drawbar]

Lawns don't bother me too much I guess. I mean I know its a waste of money and time, but it does look good and its nice having a place for the baby to play. I guess that is the big thing. As long as its used, why not keep the grass short?

I guess what REALLY gets me more then lawns is house placement. Here we have a lot of 5 acre fields and stuff, and the people move in and plant their house right in the middle of it. I can understand situating a house for solar gain, acess and set backs from the property line, but I have seen SO MANY homes built that ruin that field. If they just set the house in the corner or off to one side, us farmers could use the rest of the field for crops.

That is just a waste of good land, but then again most people don't think like farmers...damn it!

[mom]

When I was a kid...
some of the older folks had hard packed dirt yards around the house. Of course, a couple of the houses I grew up in had floors to match.
One old lady had a wooden maul, every Sunday afternoon she'd be out there thumping & tamping.
Me, I just want to do some common sense yardening; growing edibles around the house. I'll be hauling water to my place & the wildlife don't encroach upon my place... I've encroached upon theirs.
SWEPT YARDS. My great-grandmother had a swept yard. No grass, just flower beds, vegetable beds and gold fish ponds (she raised goldfish). The swept yards used to be very common in the south - something that slaves brought from Africa - no grass meant you could see the snakes or ther critters when they came into the yard. Every once in a while you run across a swept yard in East Texas but they are becoming few and far between. It's an old tradition that I hate to see go away.

[Dawgus]

hehe this is one of my favorites to get on my soap box about.
We don't have much "lawn" left (I hate that word), most is now garden, and all that's left is the front yard thats mostly shady areas under pine trees or mullberries. Sometimes I have to laugh at the neighbors when they spend days thatching,aerating, and fertilizing their grass so its that pretty golf course green. I'm out there tilling and planting FOOD, and they're babying GRASS.
Maybe most of you folks dont see it since as much you're all out further than we are, but the big thing here are the lawn services. This is by far my favorite bitch lol. I personally know a neighbor that I have gotten into an arguement with over this. They pay this service to come in and do all this work in the spring, mow all summer, and do leaf removal in the fall. And what do these people do while some other guy is mowing their grass? ::) They go to the gym to walk on a treadmill. Maybe i'm just a simple construction worker, but aren't they paying twice for the same results? Cut grass AND a good exercise? They do make me laugh.....
They asked me once why I spend so much time working in the gardens...my reply? "ya can't eat grass" They'll never get it.

[wy0mn]

Same thing Mom, except that this olde lady had a yard so dense packed that a chicken could bruise its beak grabbing a bug!

I like the "yardening" concept. First time I heard it was from Jim Hamilton (Dr James P Hamilton) years ago in Pa. He even started a Lawns Are Stupid (L.A.S.) group that devolved into a folk music winefest. lol

Still working on my Ranch when I can. Missed the Grid Independence Day deadline due to late spring & a current bout of bronchitis. Yet I still intend to drive out today and at least mount my door. Just now there is only a board nailed across the doorway to keep the cattle out.

I digress... We have a population of 274 and flat rate water. One neighbor has ran a sprinkler non-stop for a month. I cringe to imagine how many gallons of potable water he has personally evaporated into nothingness, or sent to the landfill in its new leafy reincarnation.

[mom]

My great grandmother sprinkled and then swept - hard as a heart pine floor. Nothing dared grow there. BTW - where in WYO are you - I spend 10 years in Sheridan, 4 in Laramie and then a year on the ranch 35 miles west of Riverton. Hard country there..

[Drawbar]

They asked me once why I spend so much time working in the gardens...my reply? "ya can't eat grass" They'll never get it.

Actually you are dead wrong, you can indeed eat grass. Livestock have an amazing ability to convert green grass into red marbled meat. When you have spent your whole life around livestock, you soon learn that its "all about the grass".

Grass, legumes, weeds...you have to know what is what, how it grows, how it pulls nutrients from the soil, and how to make sure you have the proper grass to legumes ratio (60-40), etc.

I know you meant lawn grass, which I agree is a waste of time, but a lot of people don't see the merit of grass and livestock. Here in Maine where we have plenty of moisture and good soil, irrigation is not even a concern. That allows us the raise livestock pretty reasonable. In my opinion, not enough people take advantage of the ease in which we grow really nice grass and legumes.

What is sad is, people will mow acre upon acre when they could take some of that acreage and have sheep, cattle or goats on it, produce meat very economically and have better tasting meat to begin with. I think a pasture that is grazed properly and clipped now and then looks nice, just as nice as acres of lawn.

Myself I only mow three acres and devote 65+ acres to growing haylage, and 47 acres to growing corn. Every few years (depending on available USDA monies) I crop rotate and put the corn into hay and hay into corn. This is just good farming practice though.

I know you are into gardens, but I bet I spend the same amount of time and effort into ensuring I am growing effective grass as you are into your gardens, heck perhaps more. Soil samples, forage samples, feed samples, fertilizer samples...they all tell me what I am growing, what I am getting for protein and vitamins out of the grass; and of course what I am putting into the soil for fertilizer (manure). In the end all that work ensures that my grass gives me the most food for the money spent.

The benefits of growing grass are actually pretty amazing, it just takes a different way of looking at simple "grass".

[Drawbar]

There is another possibility of grass that few people have looked into, and that is heating your home. On the dairy farm we put up haylage in massive, massive piles. I noticed a long time ago that these piles produce an amazing amount of heat. Even in the dead of winter (20 below) you could not stick your hand in the forage and hold it there for fear of getting burned. SO I wondered, why not run pipes through the feed and use the heated water to heat my home, shop etc.

So I researched it and not only is it possible, its being done. One guy is using a 100 ton pile of grass to heat his greenhouse. The pile is so big that it stays hot for up to 18 months.

Grass on average produces 16 million btu's per ton. In doing the math, it would take 4 tons of grass to heat my house for the winter in theory. Add some losses of BTUs for thermal transfer and an inability to retain 100% of that heat, so we should double that amount or even triple it. Even tripled that is only 12 tons. The average acre of grass here produces about 12 tons of grass in three harvests throughout the growing season. In other words an acre of hay ground should heat my home.

I have gone so far as to buy the tubing, pumps and flow control valves for an experiment in heating my house. I just got to get off my duff and see if the figures add up to real world heat. Its not a system for everyone as few people have the equipment to chop grass and move it on the massive scale required, but some of us do (We are dairy farmers and have the land and equipment). It would be really cool if this works because it would be the "greeniest of all heating systems."

[Drawbar]

Here are the figures on that last post:

2100 square foot home well insulated used 700 gallons of propane in heat last year...

Propane has 91,000 btus per gallon for a grand total of 64 million btus.

64 million btus divided by 16 millions of available heat per ton equals 4 tons of grass required

Triple that for losses and you get 12 tons. An acre of corn ground gets 15-16 tons per acre with slightly less for grass with 3 harvests per year.

On our farm, our wheelers (straight framed dump trucks) get 20 tons per load. So that is not a huge pile of grass per se. Its definitely doable...in theory. As I said I just got to get off my duff and get going on this project. Here is a picture of our grass harvest in full swing.




http://www.railroadmachinist.com/images/Chopping_Corn-small.JPG

[Shamrock1121]

We have a farm friend who heats with large round hay bails in a hay-burning furnace. You can actually use almost any kind of grass/weeds/road-side mix and bail it. He often cuts and bails right-of-ways by the rail road and ditches by his home, as a source for bails. It's kinda cool to see that whole bail in the furnace after it's burned. Open the door and when the air hits it, it crumbles to ash.

-Karen

[Deberosa]

We have a farm friend who heats with large round hay bails in a hay-burning furnace. *You can actually use almost any kind of grass/weeds/road-side mix and bail it. *He often cuts and bails right-of-ways by the rail road and ditches by his home, as a source for bails. *It's kinda cool to see that whole bail in the furnace after it's burned. *Open the door and when the air hits it, it crumbles to ash.

-Karen


I never heard of hay burning furnaces! This would be such a break through in Washington with the scotch broom! I know it burns very hot as I have burned piles of it. People here steal salal to sell to florists and Kurt and I have often wondered what commerical use we could find for scotch broom so they would start stealing it! It's a very bad weed here - lines every road and abandonned field or city lot around. We fight it every year and never win here.

[Drawbar]

I read about the Maine Cooperative Extension modifying a round baler to wrap up saplings. By saplings I mean small trees that were planted in rows about 5 feet wide. They let them grow a year or two, then mow them with a sickle bar mower, then "bale" the small trees into big wood, stemy bales and burned those. Supposedly a lot of BTU's came out of a bale.

Obviously once you cut the saplings down, they grew right back up again. I thought that was a great idea.

[TNDadx4]

With kids, I like the idea of mowing an acre around the house for them to play in, the rest could be planted or grow wild.

[flatwater]

Deberose , Man it's been years since I heard the name scotch broom. I remember when I lived in the lynwood area there was SB all over , it looked pretty untill I had to cut the stuff and clear it , then it wasn't pretty anymore.
Flatwater

[JakeLeg]

we have about an acre and a half of traditional "lawn" grass. about 1/8 of that is what you might call a presentation lawn, or the grass that you see from the road, or the "front lawn"

in my quest to make as much of my life as functional as possible, i actually like having the grass around.

i use the grass clippings as mulch in my vegetable and herb gardens.

in spring, when it just starts getting growing, i'll mow just the "front lawn" neatly, or about 1ce a week. by this point, i will have already put in lettuce and peas, so the mulching process can begin. i let the rest of the grass grow taller. by the time the rest of the garden is planted, the grass is about a foot tall. this makes excellent mulch in the garden beds. during late spring into the summer, i will mow the 'front lawn' weekly and the rest of the grass every 2-3 weeks, using all the clippings as mulch.

the way I mulch the garden is to use 1-2 layers of newspaper with a thick mulch of grass on top. the newspaper blocks the most stubborn of weeds as well as protecting the vegetables from nitrogen burning from the clippings (i've read that grass clippings break down very rapidly and release tons of nitrogen and can burn your plants)

once the garden mulching is done, i'll do 1 or 2 more cuts with the bagger on the mower so as to get some clippings for the compost piles.

then, for the rest of the summer, i will have changed the blade on the mower to the mulching blade and just run the mower over the grass and let the clippings fall, so as to give nutrients to back to the grass.

we don't use any kind of fertilizer or any other additives on the grass so cost or labor here is not an issue. last year, i bought a new troybilt push mower (self propelled) with a honda engine that is extremely efficient. i will realistically, use less than 5 gallons of gas all summer. the 'front lawn' can be completely cut in well under an hour, and i rotate the rest, cutting sections so that I do about 1/3 per week on an overall 3 week rotation. this 1/3 cut takes maybe 1 to 1-1/2 hours per week.

in the fall, in order to remove the leaves from the numerous large shade trees here, all i have to do is run the tractor with the sweeper behind to collect the leaves for the compost piles.

so, the overall benefits, as i see it, of our setup are several:

* lots and lots of mulch for the vegetable and herb gardens (that I don't have to acquire elsewhere)

* lots of material for compost for both the compost piles as well as lawn compost to keep it healthy enough for next year (that i don't have to acquire elsewhere)

* the exercise i get by walking with the push mower

* the ability to easily sweep up the leaves in autumn for way more compost pile additions

* the relatively short amount of maintenance time and cost - roughly 2 hours weekly, plus about a quart of gasoline