I purchased our lawn mower almost ten years ago, a nice Honda model. At the time I often mowed the lawn of a woman I served as home teacher. The yard was large and the grass always tall and difficult to bag. So I added a mulching accessory for the mower. Until this week it sat unopened in the box–I just never got around to trying it out.
This time of year our front lawn is often covered in fallen leaves, and we had already raked it clean a few times, depositing the leaves in our garden area and compost bins. I think Suzanne asked something about the ability to mow the leaves up, rather than raking, and I recalled that we had some kind of attachment for the mower which might help. I retrieved the box from high on a garage shelf, blew off a layer of dust, read the assembly instructions, and installed the extra blade on the mower.
I have to confess I had low expectations on how well it would work at chewing up leaves. I tried it first on the lightly covered side yard, and was pleased to show Suzanne the resulting fine debris that was left sifting through the grass. Next I tackled the thickly covered main lawn and really got into it. It was slow going, with the engine bogging down frequently in the heavy sections (and often requiring a restart until I figured out a technique). But we loved the thick, fully chopped up result.
Most of the resulting mulch we just left in place on the lawn, knowing that it was a healthy addition. But we also raked numerous leaves into one section where we then gathered up the resulting mulch and added it to the compost bins.
For the rest of the day I could hardly get that mulch out of my mind. I was just so pleased with the discovery of this new method of mowing and utilizing the result. I joked that we could heat up some mulch porridge for dinner. I find myself looking forward to more leaves dropping on the lawn so I can mow some more.
Next spring it will be interesting to see if I can stay ahead of the wet, fast growing lawn to use the mulching mower effectively. It would be nice to avoid the hassle of bagging the clippings and, instead, returning the nutrients to the soil.
Do we sound like true Oregonians, or what?
My main motivation for the mulching process is so that I can put small bits of stuff into the compost instead of enormous mats of wet leaves. Even in 6 months when I go to spread the compost in spring I’ll be finding hunks of wet leaves that never did compost. Plus, there are 2 many leave to fit into our 2 big compost bins, so we spread them in the garden. And that works ok. The chopped up mulch is a fantastic addition to my dearly beloved compost bins!