This morning my fiancee and I were driving down East State St. in Athens Ohio and I saw a woman mowing the grass between the sidewalk and the road with a reel mower. Reel mower are those mowers that many of us remember from childhood. They are purely human powered mowers, the wheels turn a spiraled blade which shears the grass like spinning scissors. My childhood memories of this device  include a lot of sweat, frustration and laughter from my elders. This morning the woman I saw mowing was having none of these problems.

In It Starts at Home, an article in the March 2009 issue of National Geographic, Peter Miller points out the startling levels of waste that are common in our daily lives. The statistic that planted the reel mower seed in my mind was that, ” The average gasoline-powered mower… puts out as much pollution per hour as eleven cars — a riding mower as much as 34 cars.” p. 67 I was surprised by this. All our bike riding and car pooling was being more than canceled out by our desire to keep a tidy lawn.

After seeing someone actually mowing with a reel mower, we felt inspired. We made calls to the local Lowes as well as the locally owned C&E True Value which had a similar mower for $30 more. Since we are trying to be ecologically minded, we decided it was worth the extra $30 to buy locally. $119 seemed a small price to pay to keep from using the gas mower again.

When we arrived home we were very excited to assemble and use the mower. It was getting warm outside so a quick test would have to do. The assembly went smoothly and we were mowing in minutes. I was astonished by the ease of pushing this mower across some mildly overgrown grass. After an easy five minutes of testing I decided that I might as well mow the whole yard.  At this point, I should make it clear that we have a relatively small yard, approximately 2500 square feet.

Mowing the yard usually takes about 30 to 45 minutes depending on the height of the grass. It took no more than 50 minutes to mow the yard with the reel mower and it was no harder to push. Our yard is on a pretty steep grade in a few places and this mower is so light that it was actually easier to push.

After less than an hour the grass was mowed. The shearing action of the mower is different than the speedy impact from the blades of a gas mower in that it leaves the tops of the grass smoothly cut and green. The clippings come straight out of the back of the mower and fall back into the yard contributing to a process called Grasscycling. Leaving the fresh cut grass on your lawn returns useful nutrients such as Nitrogen to your lawn.

All in all I am very pleased with the reel mower and will recommend it to anyone who has a lawn and likes reducing their impact on the environment.