Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Supporting the Future of Battery Technology or "We Just Need a Power Mower!"


Our garden design has only one downside so far: lots of grass between the planting beds. While we like the look and feel (soft on our bare feet) and while we also like the idea of having interstitial vegetation (grass) with associated soil food web between the beds, we do not like the amount of time we were spending mowing this grass with our manual-powered reel mower. It gets pretty wooly, pretty quick:



So, until we can replace some of these grass strips with something more maintenance free, enter the beast (It's our new rechargeable battery powered push mower):


We thought we might try and support the unfolding battery technology movement while also getting the grass mowed more quickly (so that we can actually spend time gardening):


We've only used it once but, so far, it gets a very high rating. It mowed our whole garden area and still had 75 percent of its charge. It's built well, cuts great, is essentially silent and requires no gas, no oil, no spark plugs, no filters, no nothing except plugging-in to charge. Our only fear (unfounded) is that we won't be able to find a replacement battery when we need it. Again, an unfounded fear.

We used the bagger so that we could apply the clippings to our garden plants as mulch and as a nitrogen source.


Look at this green gold:


Here's a few shots from the roof:




If you don't have a whole lot to mow, consider a rechargeable mower (and charge at night, during off-peak).

2 comments:

  1. I was going to tell you about that...I used a BnD cordless mower in my garden..i used a 50w solar panel to charge it on off duty days! I also used a 50w solar Panel to charge a 12v bat connected to an inverter 750w to run the electric weed trimmer.!!!peace

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  2. Sounds great! We have solid 2 acres to mow so that won't work for us. Since we rent, we're stuck mowing otherwise there would be sheep taking care of that for us! Garden looks great! ~Vonnie

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