My Experience Working a Lawn Mowing Job

What is it like to run a one man mowing crew? For a day every week, I went out by myself to mow the accounts that needed mowing every week. I had it down to a system.

I would arrive at the garage and back up the dump truck to an upward slope so that the back of the dump truck was closer to the ground, with the idea being to lessen the steepness of the incline. Two wooden boards served as ramps. Metal ends attached to the wood allowed the wood to be level with the bed of the dump truck to allow for easy loading and unloading.

After the wood was positioned, the large mower was started and loaded into the truck. Next was a small mower for hitting the areas the large mower couldn't reach. The remaining two machines were a weed whacker and a backpack blower. Tools loaded after that were a lawn rake, a broom, a large gas can with gas, and a small gas can with the oil and gas mix. Lastly, the two boards were loaded and the tailgate was raised and latched in place. Then I drove the dump truck to the first account.

At the account, the first step was to unload the large mower. In cases where I had to then go and park, the small mower was also unloaded as it also required using the wood. After a brief walk picking up the litter around the property, I would mow with the large mower. The large mower was a self-propelled walk behind mower, and it mowed with the most efficiency the wide areas. Whenever possible, mowing so the grass clippings blew into the lawn instead of onto the pavement was the goal. Mowing with the large mower usually took a third to half of the time.

The next step was to park or load the big mower and then use the small mower to hit the few spots that were too steep, narrow, or muddy for the large mower to handle. The weed whacker was used to hit the remaining corners and to touch up the edges while hitting the occasional weed growing in the gutter. Then the backpack blower was used to clean up the stray grass clippings.

After the blowing was complete, all the machines were reloaded into the dump truck and it was off to the next account to repeat the whole procedure. An account generally took between an hour and three hours to do, depending on how much lawn there was. When the accounts were mowed, the dump truck was then unloaded and parked.

Lawn mowing is more difficult work and eight hours out mowing was as strenuous as a ten hour day on the landscaping crew. Mowing involved standing and walking most of the day, while being out in the sun and heat. After several hours, it does tend to take a bit out of you. Maybe that is why full time mowing companies invest in the lawn mowers you can ride.