Ride on lawn mower

I decided that a good way to avoid spending the majority of each stay strimming and cutting grass would be to buy a ride on lawn mower. Perhaps a bit of an indulgence as we don’t have oodles of land and some of the terraces are rather inaccessible.

Nevertheless, I started researching. First off, I wanted to find a battery operated mower as the battery powered tools we have bought so far have been pretty good and I’m not a fan of petrol engines which can give trouble starting if left idle for extended periods. It turned out that battery powered sit on mowers are about twice the cost of petrol ones which would be hard to justify. Also, there were no local dealerships that sell them. I wanted to buy from a local dealership primarily to have somewhere to take the thing when it inevitably needs fixing or servicing.

On a walk to Ronco, we spotted one in somebody’s shed and took a picture to get the make and model. Seemed about right for the job – and it was red!

So I researched that make and found a dealership about 20 minutes drive away not too far from Montecarlo. We went past it’s showroom and called the number in it’s window to get someone to come out and open up. The one in the pictures below was larger than we needed and came with a fitting to spit mulched cuttings out at the side.

We picked one with a bag to collect the cut grass and ordered it along with a mulching kit. Mulching is an alternative to collecting and removing the cut grass and is recommended to help retain nutrients. This would give us the best of both worlds. We’d have to wait till the next trip for the mulching kit, but the mower could be delivered in a week.

A week later, the guy showed up with our mower on a trailer, unloaded it and drove it up into our garden. He gave a quick demonstration and left the keys and a manual. I drove it up onto the campo and tried it out. The bag filled with cut grass within about 10 meters and pretty soon the mower ran out of petrol.

The next job, therefore, was to go down to the consorzio (agricutural supplies shop) and get a petrol can and then off to the petrol station to fill it. Refuelled, I tried again, but really struggled as the catcher was filling up quickly and the discharge channel from the cutter to the catcher was getting clogged up with clumps of wet grass.

All the kerfuffle attracted the attention of the neighbours above us (Nicola and Piero – father and son) who came down into our garden to lend a hand with their expertise. They told me I’d be better off with the mulcher kit and I explained that I was waiting for it. We took the catcher off the back of the mower, but then the mower wouldn’t start. I seemed there was a safety feature that needed the catcher in place to depress a switch. One of them ran off to get some packing tape and we taped the switch down. Now I could drive the mower and the cuttings were coming out the back like a fountain. So my new mower was already held together with sticky tape.

The discharge channel was still getting clogged up as the grass was very long (and wet at the base). We came to the conclusion that the grass was too long for the mower and needed strimming first. So I abandoned the mowing and retreated to try another day – after strimming.