The return of the manual mower

According to a story I read over the weekend on ENN (and even in our local paper), manual mowers are making a comeback. When I say manual mowers, I am talking the old reel mowers that run on ‘human-power’. According to the article, sales of manual mowers are increasing every year, although they have a lot of ground to make up compared to sales of traditional mowers. The article cites both environmental concerns, high fuel costs, and more women doing the yard work as being reasons for the mower’s return. I personally have been using one for four or five years now. I switched simply because I was tired of filling up, fixing, and tuning up a mower that always seemed to need something fixed. My manual mower is so simple; no gas to buy, no oil to change, no filters to wash, and no starter to pull and pull (and pull!). When I want to go mow the lawn, I push it out and start mowing. Add to that, it is really quiet! I can actually mow my lawn in the morning without having to worry about waking people up, and I can even listen to my radio without having to turn the volume way up. My wife likes it too because she knows that if for some reason I broke my leg or for some reason couldn’t mow the lawn, that she could handle mowing with the manual mower.

So, what is the downside to manual mowers? Well, of course there are downsides! It does require a little muscle power, but not as much as you would think. I remember pushing my grandmother’s manual mower once, and this is about 10 times easier to push (or maybe it is because I am an adult now and can actually push it!). There isn’t a self-propel feature unless you attach your pet to the front to pull and somehow I don’t think that will be real popular with the pets! The width of the mower tends to be a little narrower than some standard mowers so this means more ‘back-and-forth’. This may just be my mower though, so look around to make sure they don’t make a wider version. Also, I have found that I need to mow a little more often (about once a week in peak growing season) since the manual mowers don’t like tall grass. Ultimately, if it is too tall, it just pushes it over and doesn’t cut it. The only way around it is to cut the grass before it gets too long.

These things aside, I wouldn’t give up my manual mower, and if and when the time comes that I need to replace it (which probably won’t happen since there really isn’t anything to break), I would definitely get another manual mower.

So, next time you are out looking at lawn mowers, step past the fancy lawn tractors and self-propelled mowers, and walk over and purchase a manual mower. It will save you a lot of money, not only on initial purchase, but also in fuel and oil purchases and repair costs, and you will be helping the environment in the process. Then again, this is just life according to Troy