# Mower_go_meow's Journal



## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Hello everyone, first time home owner in North Carolina. Never took care of a lawn beforehand as we had lawn service growing up. I closed on 11/2020 but made sure I had the essential equipment beforehand (priorities).

I initially wanted a toro time master but decided financially I should hold off until spring. I found a 3-in-1 21" honda on Facebook marketplace for 150. 

I noticed the right side wheel seemed loose. Took it apart and saw the groove on the shafts for the c-clip was gone so the gear was tossing around inside the wheel cavity. I ended up drilling a hole on the shaft (fun) and used a cotter pin with a different stack of washers. 


Yard goes as follows:
6k sqft back yard of Bermuda (not sure of cultivar)
5k sqft front yard of Fescue

Lawn is well established through out.





After spending a lot of time on this forum and on YouTube I discovered reel mowing. Given that I grew up golfing and love lawn care I decided that reel mowing would be the ticket. I decided to pick up two mowers from the weeks auction.

It was an 800 mile roundtrip but worth it. Got a 220c and a gm1000. Not sure which one I want to keep as they are both great units. The gm1000 needed more work to get running as it looks to have sat for a longer period. My logic for now is to keep the gm1000 for scalping as it has a 14 reel blade and the 220c for every day use.

220c fired right up after putting fresh gas and new oil. 
GM1000 needed fresh gas, carb cleaning, oil, spark plug, and exhaust valve adjustment. 
Pilot jet was vibrating itself away from the proper setting causing the rpm to raise at idle. 


Still need to adjust the cutting units on both mowers. Both have reel diameters within the acceptable operational range. Looking forward to sharing my adventures on here as I learn along the way.

Bonus pic: used the JD with the reel off to lay some stripes on the front yard.


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## The_iHenry (Apr 23, 2019)

Already looking better with the stripes!


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

The_iHenry said:


> Already looking better with the stripes!


Thank you! Backyard is completely dormant so I'll have to keep playing in the front till the season.


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## BakerGreenLawnMaker (Mar 13, 2018)

Looking good already. Welcome to TLF and welcome to the reel boys club!  :thumbup: :nod:


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

BakerGreenLawnMaker said:


> Looking good already. Welcome to TLF and welcome to the reel boys club!  :thumbup: :nod:


Thank you! Really enjoying the wealth of information on this website.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Applied first round of Sunniland 007 pre-emergent about a two weeks ago. Mother Nature did the watering in with a precisely calculated 0.5". My front yard (tall fescue) seemed to suffer from this years winter. A combination of lack of feeding in fall (moved in November) and excess rain caused the grass to lose much of its color. Weather is slowly hitting the 60s but still have soil temps in the upper 40s so I decided to give the front yard a "winter" feeding. Applied milorganite at around .75lbs/k. I understand some of the available nitrogen is water soluble while some relies of warmer soil temps for the microbes to breakdown the fertilizer to convert it to nitrogen. With that I know some got absorbed for carb storage. I wanted to avoid a unnecessary flush of growth but thankfully the weather has not hit that point yet.

Before application

5 days later

Probably a combination of things but I'm guessing the iron is driver here in the darkening of the lawn.

Backyard being dormant bermuda and left at 2.75" for winter I decided to start mowing it down to minimize the amount of work during scalping. It's now sitting at 2" and I'll probably mow it again soon.

I also took a advantage of my local county extension office's services. They send out soil samples once a month to Raleigh to get tested. Paid 4$ a sample (front and backyard) and will have results in 2 weeks. I was too cheap to buy the correct tool so I used a square tubing and a wooden dowel to punch out the cores. Not ideal but given the time crunch to meet the deadline for the soil sample I had no other option. 

I'm well aware on the amount of poa I have. I'm just going to roll with it rather than applying a blanket application of herbicide. Next winter season I'll be in a better place to manage it. Going to scalp it to dirt when the time is right and let the summer heat allow the Bermuda to do it thing.


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## AUspicious (Apr 16, 2020)

@mower_go_meow, I do something similar for test samples...a mallet, a short piece of 3/4" PVC, and a wood dowel. It gets the job done.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

@AUspicious Nice! Can't justify spending money on a one trick pony tool that gets used once a year


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Have my sprayer functioning but need to give the wood some poly.

Used a 2.2 gpm 16 gal spot sprayer from Northern tool as the foundation. 3 nozzles for this pump is the limit. I'm at .5 gpm per nozzle which puts me at the pumps limit of 1.5gpm at 50psi.
The base is a 4cu ft gorilla cart. I couldn't find a decent spreader to use as a base and I didn't want to adapt this beast of a tank to my echo rb60.


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## rjw0283 (May 11, 2020)

Nice! Wow. Nice sprayer and Mowers. You seem to be all in.

Gotta catch up to the neighbor with the really green grass.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

rjw0283 said:


> Nice! Wow. Nice sprayer and Mowers. You seem to be all in.
> 
> Gotta catch up to the neighbor with the really green grass.


Might have jumped in too fast haha! But ready to get things rolling this year.

Funny thing is neighbor just mows and blows. Must have been a good cultivar he recently seeded with.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Sprayed prosolutions 15-0-0 with 6% chelated iron on my front yard (fescue) on 3/20/2021.
Applied it at 2oz/gal since it was my first time experimenting with the sprayer. Loving the sprayer as opposed to the broadcast spreader. Feels like I'm using a giant hvlp gun :mrgreen:

I had been maintaining the Bermuda salad in the backyard at 1.0" after the scalp a few weeks ago. Decided to finally take the jump to the gm1000 at 0.5". First time mowing the full yard and phew what a pleasure to use. Spent a lot of time walking the yard prior to mowing to pick up any debris. While mowing the rear drum hit a rock that I had missed. No damage to the bed knife or reel since it was .125" above the surface. Went to pick it up only to find it was the tip of a fully submersed Boulder. Glad I got that out of the way.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Scalped at .250 with the gm1000, now we wait.




Also patiently waiting for my fescue seed project in the front to germinate. It's been 7 days but the weather has not been optimal so I'm hoping it takes off this week. I went as far as covering the spots for the freeze we had this weekend. Used the grill thermometer to see temp deltas. I was impressed with the 14 degree difference of surface temps. Soil temp was around 4 deg difference.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Mowed the backyard at .350 and then applied stagreen calcitic lime at 5lbs/k. Also spent a good part of the day organizing the fire wood pile and burning the small sticks. Looking for some green to grow following the forecasted rain in NC


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Slowly coming in. Maintaining at .350 until summer hits


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Another .350 mow. Every mow there is noticeably more Bermuda coming in. I let the weather take care of the POA. Ever since the .250 scalp it never really bounced back which I can't complain about. 

Been looking to experiment with some SWE (seaweed extract) after reading some papers and testimonials from superintendents. Primarily intend to use it on my front fescue. Trying to ensure my spring seeding has everything it needs to power through summer. The price was right, the employees/owners were super helpful, and it was local. https://www.southernorganicsandsupply.com/liquids


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Applied .9oz/k of the kelp and 10oz/k of the 6-20-6 on the front yard.

Applied .12lbs/k of nitrogen backyard and 2oz/k of chelated iron.

Then proceeded to spend the entire afternoon moving sprinklers around. Wishing I had irrigation...


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Picked up a 7blade earthwise from fb marketplace. Took some luck to make it happen but happy I have one now. Plan on using it on areas that aren't suitable for the greensmowers due to terrain.


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

Far away not bad

Close up of the dead poa area


Zoomed out of the dead poa area 


Best coverage I have close up


As much as I would love to nuke and lay sod I'm going to experiment and see where a season of proper cultural practices take me. I moved into this house last November with zero lawn experience. I have been mowing every other day at 0.40" and spraying 1/8 of N/1000sqft per week. It yields about 1.5 full grass catchers for 4.5ksqft. April has been a freak of a month with record lows, above average highs and very little rain. Let's see where May takes us!


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## mower_go_meow (Nov 13, 2020)

First year with this yard and I have realized how much goose grass there is. It's a constant battle of pulling them. I have even resorted to using a torch on the large patches and plugged Bermuda in the place. Earlier in the season I had to use some MSMA to get me to a place I can keep up with. Next year I will use ronstar as PreEm


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## krusej23 (May 8, 2018)

I just bought a JD 220C and the brake does not work. It's not a big deal but I'm wondering if you could send a picture or video of your brake being pushed on and off. This is what mine looks like and I'm trying to figure out what I'm missing. https://photos.app.goo.gl/hhMZWKW7wrqjfWwH9


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