Archive for May, 2011

Tips on Maintaining Your Lawn

If you read my last blog post, you learned some of the benefits to maintaining your yard such as increased home value, lower air conditioning bills, and better water quality. I suggested the Worx WG500 TriVac as a great tool to get your lawn and garden maintenance on the right track. However, all that leaves you with is some good info and possibly a TriVac. So I decided to write a Part 2 in honor of this daunting seasonal task that you may or may not enjoy. I’m going to share with you several tips on some best practices when it comes to maintaining your lawn in particular.

The reality is everyone mows their lawn (well, almost everyone) and many of you may get frustrated when your grass starts to turn brown, or will only grows in patches. It’s at this time when you do one or all of these three things: scratch your head, kick your ineffective sprinkler, or Google a solution. When Googling a solution there is no guarantee that the information you find is going to be accurate, and you have to always keep that in mind. Unfortunately nowadays, everybody and anybody can publish content to the internet. But enough with back story, let’s get right to the tips, shall we?

Tip #1: Don’t leave your sprinkler on all day. Just like you can drown a flower, you can drown your lawn. Many experts agree that an inch of water once a week is about right for most lawns. I can’t tell you how many people I know personally who leave their sprinklers on all day. It’s an easy mistake, but a very costly one. Keep in mind though that an inch of water isn’t a global rule, the amount of water you need also depends on the climate, soil composition, and season. For the majority however, the best way to determine your lawn’s watering cycle is by placing containers on the lawn. Time it! Once they fill up with an inch of water you’ll know how long it takes to water your lawn with the sprinkler system you have.

Tip #2: Don’t cut your grass as short as possible. I know what you’re thinking. The shorter I cut it, the longer it’ll take to grow back which means I won’t have to cut it as much. However, that’s the wrong way to look at it. Longer grass prevents many weeds from growing up through the lawn, which in the long run really saves you more time. Who likes to pull weeds, or take chances on what weed killers actually work?

Tip #3: Only cut a 1/3 off your lawn. Just like any other plants or trees, you can’t cut too much off it or it will wither and possibly die. It’s the act of regeneration. Cutting more than a 1/3 off of your lawn’s grass shocks it and causes it to turn yellow or brown.

Tip #4: Don’t remove lawn clippings. This isn’t a requirement, but it does allow you to use less fertilizer which in turn saves you money. Lawn clippings are organic materials that can decompose and become fertilizer themselves. Lawn clippings will not cause thatch, but if you have thatch you should remove the lawn clippings until the problem is solved. Aerating your lawn prevents thatch which is Tip #5.

Tip #5: Always aerate your lawn. By always I mean make it part of your routine once a year. Aerating is simply poking holes into the lawn’s soil. This pulls out little round pieces of soil called plugs. Aerating is a form of “turning your lawn”. It allows deeper root growth and reduces soil compaction. Aerating allows air, water, and several nutrients direct access to your lawn’s root system. Plugs created by aerating hold water which allows hard soil to moisten, and clay soil to expand.

These five tips alone should greatly improve your lawn if you aren’t practicing them already. Of course always keep in mind that climate, soil composition, and time of year will cause variance in your results. In that case, take these tips and adapt them best to your situation. Now you will probably need something to trim your lawn in hard to reach places that a mower won’t pick up. As I said before I love the products that Worx makes, especially their trimmers. So take a look into the Worx WG151.5 Cordless Lithium-Ion Grass Trimmer.

Worx abandoned the need for gas power, and made it lightweight and convenient with an 18V battery. No cords, no need to buy gas. A friend I work with has a gas powered trimmer, and hasn’t touched it in over a year since getting the WG151.5. The battery takes only a ½ hour to charge, and a rack comes with it so you can mount it on to the wall while you wait. The WG151.5 has an automatic single line feed system, which means you never have to tap your trimmer head to feed additional line. It’s unique pivoting head and ratchet mechanism tilts 90 degrees so it can easily fit in tight spaces or sloped landscapes. So if you’re looking for a way to start putting these tips in action, check out the Worx WG151.5.

Written By Joseph Scovill

Maintaining Your Yard Has a Big Payoff

You wake up to the sound of your alarm clock. You hit the off button as you roll slowly out of bed. Across the room on the wall you look at your Tools Plus calendar (just kidding) and you realize that it’s almost Memorial Day. A stinging realization hits you like a falling wasp’s nest onto your face. You open up your sun blocking bedroom curtains, and you peer outside into the morning light. What do you see?

Your once luscious lawn is now 3 feet high with overgrowth and much of it has faded to a not so flattering brown. You have two children who usually wake you up every morning, but you don’t hear them. You can only conclude that they are lost somewhere in your newly cultivated corn field. In the distance, your wife constructed a scarecrow to ward off crows and other birds that would otherwise colorfully decorate your heavy duty pickup truck. Next to the window are these gnarled masses of vegetation that you once called hedges, and it’s at this point that you wish today was Halloween instead.

Okay, so maybe your yard has never been this bad but you get the point. With Memorial Day marking the first holiday of the summer season, this means you might have family and friends over for some burgers and hot dogs. If you haven’t started yet, now is the perfect time to take care of the lawn you neglected during the late winter-early spring season. Why is maintenance of your yard or lawn so important? For several reasons of course, other than it’s therapeutic (I’m serious, ask anybody).

On a monetary scale, maintaining your yard can increase your home’s value by up to 15 percent. This may answer some questions of why so many people do everything in their power to create a beautiful yard and garden. Maintaining your lawn is also one of the cheapest ways of doing so too. Once you buy the equipment and supplies, it’s much easier from then on out each year.

Maintaining lawn also lowers the cost of air conditioning bills. Why? Because the moisture evaporates from grass leaves and helps keep air temperatures cooler, which greatly differs from the heat that is generated from paved surfaces. Another benefit of maintaining your lawn is that it improves water quality. Thick sod that’s produced by grass helps water soak into the ground. This greatly reduces water runoff that carries soil or other contaminants into waterways.

I know all about runoff too, when I was younger my family used to live in a hilly area where we had trouble getting grass to grow. When we had heavy rains, the runoff would cause the drains to clog up with soil from our yard and unpaved driveway. Houses that were further down the hill would end up with more soil in their lawns than they planned for. It’s not pretty, but it’s a reality.

So with all this information, where do you start? I’d look for high quality lawn and maintenance equipment with a great product life. I tend to go with Worx. Worx is a company that focuses primarily on yard maintenance.

Worx has the wonderful WG500 TriVac. It’s a blower, mulcher, and vacuum all in one design. The TriVac has an instant one-switch blower to vacuum conversion, and is single handed for easy use. At 8.3 pounds, I’ve noticed that the Worx TriVac weighs even less than a gallon of milk. This baby hits an airspeed over 210 mph, and is equipped with a 12 amp motor. The WG500 TriVac is able to produce enough suction to vacuum 14 gallons of dry leaves in less than a minute.

Keep reading the Tool Talker Blog, I’ll being posting more suggestions on what to use on your yard as well as tips on maintaining too.

Written By Joseph Scovill

Dust Collection Made Easier With Vortex Cone Dust Collectors

I know too many people who complain about the dust in their shops. Whether you’re still kicking it with a broom and dust pan or whether you moved on to a dust collector, it isn’t enough. Ever turned the light off in your shop, and turned on a flashlight? If you haven’t, you should give it a try. For most, you’ll notice just how many dust particles pass through the light while you stand there. The worst thing about it is that you have to breathe that dust in every time you’re inside your shop working on your latest project. For those of you who own a dust collector, changing the filter never really helps much. Many dust collectors have trouble separating the chips from the dust. This causes the filter to become clogged, so when you open it, all of its contents dump out and spread into the air, defeating the purpose of having a dust collector in the first place.

Then Jet released their line of Vortex Cone Dust Collectors. From the outside, they look the same as any other Jet Dust Collector but there is more to them than meets the eye. With this new line, Jet introduced their Vortex Cone Particle Separation Technology, the answer to every frustrated woodworker’s dream. This Particle Separation Technology increases the performance and efficiency of previous Jet Dust Collection models.

How? By preventing 98% of the wood chips from making it up to the filter chamber thus making manual cleaning easier and decreasing the likelihood of clogging. With this new technology, chips are better contained for increased packing density, which in turn requires fewer collection bag changes. The high air velocity (CFM) is able to stand up against any competitive specifications, and their collection bags have a snap ring for faster installation and removal. Most importantly, it makes it much easier to breathe, and when you turn on that flashlight you are going to see a lot less dust. The Vortex Cone Dust Collector line comes in 2 series, the DC1100VX series and the DC1200VX series. All DC1100VX and DC1200VX series models are backed by Jet’s 5-Year warranty.

Written By Joseph Scovill

Want to Learn More? Visit our Jet Dust Collection page.