Friday 22 April 2011

Lawnmowers


There are different types of lawn mower, if you live in the UK with a typical UK sized garden you may find an electric lawnmower more than adequate for the job, but when you have a good size garden you need a different approach.  I have 2500sqm of garden, in year one I had the opportunity to have my piece of "River Cottage", about 1200sgm of veg garden, now many UK expats do what I did, get the local farmer to plough the land and preper it for crops, then after it starts to grow realise that you have taken on far to much as it overgrows, most veg going to seed before you have chance to gather in your harvest, then deciding that maybe next year you will have a couple of cold frames instead, with a herb garden close to the house.


So you grow something that grows very well in Brittany, GRASS, I often see people on UK Ex-pat websites asking where they can buy turf. I usually reply throw some seed on the ground, wait for one days rain, instant jungle. I did offer a pick your own service to those wanting turf, but no takers. But back to cutting the stuff. Petrol lawnmowers fall into three groups, push it, be pulled by it and drive it. My first lawnmower was a push lawn mower with a Honda engine, push lawnmowers have one draw back, you have to push it, that gentle slope in your garden becomes a hill when your pushing it in 10cm or more of long grass, the more you cut the heavier the job gets as the grass collecting box fills up. This year it failed to start and as it was five years old, and hard work I bought a tractor lawn mower. The tractor lawnmower drives the (in my lawnmowers case) the rear wheels, the only problem I've found with it is that as the weight is at the back (the grass box) and its pulling you is the front end is a bit light and the lawnmower will bounce.
The tractor part on my neighbours (and elderly Dutch man) lawnmower broke, the energy needed to push the lawnmower and the pulling of the starter cord has proved to much for him, so he's bought a ride on lawnmower, electric start, variable speed, including reverse and adjustable cut height, ideal, its even got lights.


LIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What time is he going to cut the lawn????????????????????????,

1 comment:

Diane said...

We bought a sit on a couple of years ago and I just love it. I have never enjoyed cutting grass so much before :-) Diane