I found my reel mower! It's a Toro Greensmaster 1000 that I picked up for $750. We woke up at 5am to drive out to McKinney Texas and pick it up. We didn't get home until around 6pm.
Despite the long drive, I'm very happy with it. It wasn't cutting paper at first but I was able to adjust that and get it cutting paper across the whole bed knife.
Cut the yard today at around 3/4 inch. It looks like crap but it's not the mowers fault. It's from the lawn paint job and my lack of experience.
Next step is to clean it up real nice and learn how to do the grease fittings, change oil/filter/spark plug etc.
You're going to LOVE that mower! It took me a bit to learn to control it but it cuts great. I nicknamed mine the "Spooked Mule". It'll pop wheelies until you learn to work the drive lever smoothly.
I do love this mower! I just put down some stripes in the dormant Bermuda.
I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of using it. I popped a ton of wheelies in the process, but I found a good throttle speed I like. I might take off the transport connections to get in closer with the mower against obstacles. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with everything so far.
Had an issue with the throttle cable. It fell out of position inside the control panel and made me think the cable died. I popped it back and now I'm good to go. I went ahead and ordered all new cables for the controls, but I really didn't need to. This is just for piece of mind and to have a small project replacing them. I paid about $150 for the three OEM cables. The cable housings are all busted open and worn so if nothing else they'll look better.
Put out the last of my air 8 bottle today in the backyard. It was probably only around 16 oz or so. I applied it with the simple lawn solutions sprayer across around 4,000 square foot. It's supposed to rain today to help it get into the soil.
Just looked over your journal. Wow, lots of work in half a year. I've had drip irrigation in my beds for years...have never really used it, I have 5 children (I'm a milk man - insert joke) that I keep busy hand watering. Seems really cool to have in a yard.
Just looked over your journal. Wow, lots of work in half a year. I've had drip irrigation in my beds for years...have never really used it, I have 5 children (I'm a milk man - insert joke) that I keep busy hand watering. Seems really cool to have in a yard.
Thanks, I like to stay busy. I really enjoy the hand watering as well. The drip should come in handy for vacation and droughts.
1/25/2020
Today I mowed the back yard at 0.5 inch
Still playing with the new mower and learning how it works. So far I've greased all the fittings with Lucas Marine grease and replaced the throttle and clutch cables. I still need to replace spark plug, change the oil, and clean fuel filter.
It's so nice seeing stripes in my dormant grass. I still need to work on making them straight. Lot of leveling to do as well.
Mowed the dormant grass at 0.25 inches. It's crazy how many clippings were created going from 0.5 to 0.25 inch hoc. The clippings left small lines in the yard but it seems to be cutting really well.
Changed the oil and got it starting cold on first pull at half choke and mid throttle.
Using a mightyvac fluid extractor off Amazon for around $25 to remove the old oil and fill with 0.6 quarts of 10w30.
It's summer weeds pre emergent day! I'm a little early but we have had two 70 degree days in a row with 24 hour soil temps are at 52.
Did a 6 month rate of prodiamine on the front yard and a 3 month rate on the backyard, which still needs to fill in so I'm splitting those apps to make sure I don't overdose anything. Eventually I'll have the full yearly max across everything and then switch back to indaziflam for fall.
I'll hit them again in about 30 days.
In the same tank I put down some humic 12 at the 6oz rate.
I also dusted off the drip irrigation and fixed a few things and created a new zone. It seems to be working fine, but I'll be dragging a hose to water in the pre.
We're not done freezing yet so I'm not bringing out any hose timers quite yet.
Did an xsoil app on the front and back yard at 10lbs per M rate. So the entire bag covered about 4,500 sq ft. It's been a few days since I did this app and it rained twice since.
Scalped the lawn down to 0.2 inches and bagged clippings on first pass and then stopped collecting for the remaining passes. I probably wasted some of my xsoil prills, but that's fine. I wanted to scalp so I scalped.
This was a pretty difficult process because I was going from .75 to 0.2 inches. I should have probably not done that much at once. It was really difficult to push the mower and I had to raise it pretty often to get the mower to move. I might have damaged my belts some in the process but it still works for now.
I noticed it went from cutting paper before mowing to not cutting after. I will readjust but it's probably telling me I pushed the limits of what the reel can handle. I definitely hit more sticks and stuff that I wanted to.
I do not have a single weed in the yard thanks to indaziflam in October.
The Bermuda is just barely trying to wake up.
This scalp was too early but I couldn't help myself. I'll do it again at 0.1 inches soon.
Dissolved a 6 oz Tournament Ready pellet in a gallon of water and applied 8oz per M to my front and back yard with a sprayer and the red AI teejet nozzle. Watered it in real well after. I'm hoping this will get the water flowing better with my drip irrigation and avoid the green lines that developed last season.
This is how I'm looking right now. HOC is 0.4 inches
Officially giving up on the turf drip as of today. I just can't handle the spotted appearance and green lines. If I could do it again I would have picked the 0.9 GPH instead of 0.26 GPH and I would not have used propane to warm the tubes before connecting (they tend to leak easier when you do this)
I'm back to dragging hoses with the MP rotators... but at least I know the water coverage will be good. I'm only really focused on 4,700 square foot at the moment, so it shouldn't be too bad. If it becomes unmanageable I'll have to look into "real" irrigation.
I'll still be using drip to water my flowers, shrubs and the long driveway strip of turf which is about 3 foot by 200 foot.
Yesterday was a big scalp day on the backyard. I used my greensworks dethatcher and then ran over everything with with the rotary on the lowest setting several times. I pulled out a ton of dead material, way more than expected. I can really see the dirt now. Still no fert because it's not warm enough.
Today I did a 6 month rate of prodiamine on the same area (1 oz total for 2,700 square foot) with a bit less on the areas that need to fill in after the fence removal. Watered it all in using my mp rotators connected with a hose.
We had ourselves a bit of a late freeze and snow this past weekend
This week the temps are warming up and hopefully staying that way.
I'm not full on fertilizing yet but I did spray a little today
Front yard (rates per M)
O.75 oz depth 10+ peptides
8 oz Greene effect
6 oz microgreene
Backyard (2.7 M)
2.5 oz depth 10+ peptides (going heavy)
8 oz Greene effect
We'll see how this works. The front looks fairly green and nice but the backyard is struggling. The la Prima I seeded last year is coming up real slow and thin and yellow. Everything is scalped and dethatched. Just need warmer weather...
Things are greening up nicely with the subvert depth 10+and xgrn 8-1-8. My neighbors yard looks amazing too (the one in the top right with the handicap ramp) and all they've had this year is prodiamine, a touch of humic 12, a pound of N per M through 13-13-13 and maybe two waterings.
We haven't had a significant rain in months so I'm really surprised how well everything looks. I've been mowing the neighbor lawn about every 3 days at an inch with the earthwise 7 blade and mine every day or two at 0.4 inches with the GM1000.
This spot here (middle strip surrounded by concrete) is getting liquid only fert this season. I'm using Peters professional all purpose 20-20-20 with chelated micros. It's only had 0.4 pounds N so far this year. The pic below is before the first app. Looks nice and green without any fert so far.
A while back you said you were having to take your GM to D/FW area for service. I told you I'd ask around the Lubbock area. There's a gentleman named Scott who does onsite reel work. You can contact him @ 806-773-3643.
A while back you said you were having to take your GM to D/FW area for service. I told you I'd ask around the Lubbock area. There's a gentleman named Scott who does onsite reel work. You can contact him @ 806-773-3643.
The products I'm using lately are Tnex, 8-1-8, depth 10+, tournament ready, feature, Peters 20-20-20 all purpose.
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