Manual Push Mowers – The Green Way To Cut Your Grass

Remember when the only person using a manual push mower was either your grandfather or that young kid down the block who would cut your yard for a couple of bucks. Times are different now and the trend towards a more eco friendly lifestyle has brought the manual push mower, or “reel” mower, back into fashion.

It is a simple principle that cuts your grass, a spiral shaped tube, or reel of blades spins in a holder in accordance with how fast or slow you push the mower. The newer designs of push mowers far surpass the cutting power of the mowers even a few decades old. Newer metal composites allow for sharper blades that stay sharper longer.

The new manual push mowers are also quieter than your grandfathers, but still require a certain amount of effort to yield their results. Where it might take 45 minutes to mow your yard with a power mower, it will probably take closer to 60 with a push mower. The work is equivalent to a light aerobic workout with the added benefit of leaving you feeling good about yourself.

Reel mowers won’t cut tall grass like swamp grass very well and don’t do well with sticks or rocks, but then what mower does? But as long as you cut your lawn on a regular basis, meaning the grass never gets too long, the procedure will be relatively easy for lawns up to 4 or 5 thousand square feet and up to around 7,000 if you have a helper.

For regularly mowed lawns no grass catcher is needed. One of the advantages of the manual push mower is how it contributes to the health of the lawn by recycling the grass. The grass clippings left on the lawn add nitrogen to the lawn which acts as a natural fertilizer.

Your alternatives are gas powered mowers which considering the about of pollution they exude are really no alternative at all. The average gas powered mower puts out about 10 times the hydrocarbons of the average car. This is not a very eco friendly way to cut your lawn.

There are also electric mowers and other than their use of electricity, they can be quite an earth friendly way to go. They of course suffer from cord length problems, but for some more money you can get one of the new cordless electrics. Electrics really make a difference when the lawn size goes up over 6 or 7 thousand square feet in size.

In conclusion, if you mow your yard on a regular basis, enjoy a little mild exercise and want to give something back to the planet then a manual push mower is the best option for easy and healthy grass cutting.