JOHN DEERE ATTACHMENTS (Lawn Sweeper)

Yeah, I'm that guy in the neighborhood who you love to hate, the one working in the yard, striving for the greenest grass, plucking weeds as soon as they appear and yelling at kids to "get off my lawn."  Well, maybe that's an exaggeration (I don't really yell at kids to get off my lawn) but I do like to have nice green grass and I don't really like spending all of my free time doubling as my own yard service.

There are a couple of things that I do, however, that any lawn service would typically perform in the spring: picking up sticks/debris that have accumulated over the winter and dethatching the lawn.  The way I figure it, I could (1) do it by hand, which would take hours of backbreaking work; (2) pay someone to do it, which would require me to use my money (earned through hours of backbreaking work); or (3) I could make a one-time investment in the equipment necessary to do the job minus the backbreaking part and in the end have the equipment and be money ahead.  Plus, I get to use my John Deere lawn tractor for more than just mowing the grass, helping to fulfill my fantasies of being a farmer.  So I invested in a John Deere Lawn Sweeper and a John Deere Dethatcher to go with my John Deere LA175 tractor.  I'll talk about the John Deere Lawn Sweeper in this post. 

Portions of my yard contain large trees which, with certain exceptions I like.  The Sweet Gum trees, common in the Southeast, really get on my nerves.  Don't get me wrong, the Sweet Gums are large, beautiful trees (especially in the fall), they're fast growing and provide great shade.  Unfortunately, they also provide me with thousands of "gumballs" during the late winter and spring.  If you've never seen a "gumball" you're not missing much.  Gumballs are spikey hard balls containing thousands of seeds that prevent you from walking barefoot in the grass without extreme pain.  They drop like rain and cover the ground under the trees and tend to roll to low spots in the lawn where they congregate.  Sweet Gum trees are also weak and routinely drop large sticks and branches onto the grass.  If you try and ignore the gumballs, they just accumulate, make your yard look like crap and get smashed into the grass where they are almost impossible to get out.  I initially tried raking them but ended up fighting a never-ending battle (although my forearms became absolutely massive).  But with the John Deere Lawn Sweeper, the gumballs have finally met their match!

 

 

 

Obviously the sticks, gumballs, acorns and other detritus built up in the lawn over the winter should be removed since a heavy accumulation of debris will smother the grass and create bare areas.  The John Deere Lawn Sweeper is perfect for this task and makes my life much easier.  I've found that it's best to do this job before the grass starts growing; if the grass is too long, the gumballs (and the other stuff) gets caught in the grass and won't sweep up as well.  Plus it's tougher for the sweeper brushes to get down into that thicker grass.  This year I got an early start, the grass was very low and I was able to set the sweeper at the lowest level allowing it to collect lots of debris.  As you can see, after a few passes I collected lots (and lots, and lots) of gumballs, sticks, leftover leaves, etc.  Although the contents of the sweeper were quite heavy and I had to dump it frequently, the sweeper is well designed making it easy to dump just by pulling the ropes attached to the top of the sweeper.  

How well the sweeper works can be seen by the results (as a yard guy, I absolutely love this machine - I don't know what I did without it):

 

Once I've completed the spring sweeping jobs (which includes picking up the thatch that I'll talk about in the next post), I always like to clean my equipment before putting it up, especially when it's going to sit for awhile which my sweeper does.  The sweeper gets dusty and dirty and although it probably wouldn't be a big deal if I just stuck it in the garage, no matter how hard I try I can't bring myself to do that (knowing how dirty it was would keep me up at night).  So I always wash it down before putting it up.

 

Although you might be thinking that spraying equipment down with water is a bad idea and will lead to rusty parts, I don't worry about my equipment rusting for a couple of reasons.  First, I dry off the areas that I can reach.  Second, I use AMSOIL Metal Protector (MP) (AMSOIL Product Code AMP) on any area where metal touches metal (all of the joints and pivot points).

AMSOIL MP Metal Protector (old packaging)

AMSOIL MP Metal Protector (new packaging - same great formula)

 AMSOIL MP is an easy-to-use spray-on product that protects metal surfaces, displaces water and silences squeaks.  It lubricates metal surfaces, leaving a dry wax-like film, doesn't form gum or sludge and it's compatible with plastic, fabric and paint.  Unlike WD-40, it dries without leaving any sticky residue so dirt won't stick to it.  In all the years that I've been washing down and protecting my equipment, I've never had any rust or corrosion problems while using AMSOIL MP.  Even better, when it's time to use the equipment again, I know that it's lubricated and ready to go.  I really love this stuff! 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting this post.  I'll discuss the John Deere Dethatcher in the next post.

Questions, comments and advice are always welcome!!