Beginner Mistakes: Bagging Grass Clippings

[Steve]

Beginner Mistakes from our friend Jim of promower.net Here are some things beginners often get wrong: Bagging Grass Clippings: Don’t bag grass clippings, mulch them. If you cannot avoid bagging, make sure you’re getting premium pay to cover all the extra work.

__________________
- Subscribe to my Lawn Care Marketing Blog Feed and get daily tips sent to you. Free!
Download your Free trial of Gopher Lawn Care Software.

Lawn care business tips

Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] (Team Gopher @ Jan. 31 2007,12:45)]Beginner Mistakes from our friend Jim of promower.net Here are some things beginners often get wrong: Bagging Grass Clippings: *Don’t bag grass clippings, mulch them. *If you cannot avoid bagging, make sure you’re getting premium pay to cover all the extra work. Wow, this could not have been said better. Extra work is right. The only people that need to be bagging are golf courses. Almost all my mowers have been converted to dedicated mulchers. Any new mower will be mulcher off the line. Looks better and is easier. Also better for the turf.

[VogelLawnService]

so true, plus when you remove clippings you are accually taking natural fertilizer from your customers lawn. grass clippings return nutrients into the lawn. so when you leave them its better for the lawn as long as you only cut about a quarter of the blade!

[Billz]

Well, I have a few rich customers who think it is ok to grow 7 inches of grass every week. I mow them on Friday and bag most of their lawns. It has helped me grow in this one area. I now have 8 customers and am looking to add another 3-4 from ones who talked to me last year but were already committed to another lco... I do charge extra, but only 5$ per week. It really doesnt take any longer, because I can single cut instead of double. This area borders a private golf course, and I worked out a deal with the superintendant to dump my grass in an area right there. So really it gives me the best of both worlds...I have a dump insert in my truck, so I just fill it up and dump it nearby...if dumping wasnt a problem everywhere else I think I would do it more often.

Homeowners love bagging for some reason here in southern Maine. Most of my customers want it done, but if I can dump it on thier property I don't charge extra. Only a couple of them where I have to haul it off.

At the start of the season I will bag everybody the first couple of times anyway just to collect the extra junk that accumulated from late fall thru the winter.

I'm going to make an effort at steering my customers away from it this season. I'll be experimenting with Gator blades and see what they think.

Any feedback on using Gator blades? Love 'em or hate 'em?

[Billz]

Gators work better than the stock blades, but someone here uses Ninja blades and they never seem to need to double cut, ever! I might look into them this year.

[bohiaa]

And We "in my area" have to pay to dump it

[justin_time]

Where's the LIKE button.. oh right.. it's not facebook lol

[Ducke]

Originally Posted by Billz

Gators work better than the stock blades, but someone here uses Ninja blades and they never seem to need to double cut, ever! I might look into them this year.

Picked up a Gator blade for my mulcher this year and find that it seems to miss a lot of tuffs of grass . Not sure if its from wheel marks or blade skip, but I'm not really sold on them. I hate to have to double mow it a real waste of time and my money but I can't leave a lawn looking like a Barbour School hair cut.
Any suggestions to correct this Do I need to mow slower or faster or overlap my passes more ?

[Steve]

Could you show us a picture of it the next time it happens?