how do you handle bagged grass

[PRECISION LC]

i just purchased a walker ghs, and i have had one hell of a time getting the 9.5 bussels of grass in the back of my truck, i am dumping it into a tarp. i am just wondering how you load it. do you dump on your trailer, or into a tarp. or any other ways and if you have any pictures of good setups for ideas that would be great.
thanks
kyle:blob2:

[PaulJ]

This is just an idea as I just have a WB mower, but ai have thought of how I would handle grass if I got a rear dump ZTR.
If you have a big enough trailer lay a tarp down in the front and back your mower up your trailer ramp and dump in the front of the trailer. Maybe aven put 3-4 ft sides on the front part of your trailer. When it comes time to dump, have ropes hooked to all four corners of your tarp, hook them to your mower and pull the tarp off, un hook the two corners of the tarp closest to you then pull the tarp out of the pile of grass. This is kind of how I unload my pickup only with just me pulling on the corners of the tarp. The succsess of this with your walker will depend alot on what type of trailer you have and how much you like backing your mower, and how much other equipment you have to haul.

[LAWNGODFATHER]

I don't bag grass!!!!!!!!!!! Have fun!!!!

[CLARKE]

Never have Never will bag any grass, doulble blades and the
dixie chopper chop the grass up so fine that there almost nothing to pick up unless were in a wt time then you just have to mow over it 2nd time and charge a little xxx for that. :blob3: :blob1: :blob4: :blob2:

[BigJim]

I dump my walker catcher into used wool bales(we buy em cheap at farm supply stores),one catcher per bale,line em up behind the trailer until your finished the job,toss em in and off you go.Saves covering the load as nothing blows out the trailer.When you dump just roll em out and empty,its real quick.But when I get rich
I'm getting a mulching deck!

[rixtag]

Bagged grass? What is that?

Ditto LGF

Rick

[Green Care]

You are bagging .What????????????????????????????:confused:

[HacMan91]

Hey, Im not going to give you a hard time for bagging grass. I know some of us have to in our market area. Ive got a walker and an exmark. We leave our grass bagged on the curb. Since I bought the exmark we dont bag as much. The owners manual has a pic of a guy using a nylon bag. If I was hauling it off Id find the bag and just dump it in the bed each time. The exmark with the mulch deck eliminated most of our bagging but we still bag some.

[shearbolt]

I bought a lift system for my Walker. I don't recommend it for hilly areas. If you do get it install the tail wheel lock, it will help stabilize the now top heavy mower on inclines. The cheap alternative is a ramp into the back of the truck. You can see all the most popular ways in Vol. 10 of the Walker Talk magazine.http://walkermowers.com/vol10/clippings.html For dumping use a Loadhandler.http://www.loadhandler.com

[Jay ALC]

I have considered a Walker for bagging and a lot of people use them in our area. Setup number one is a large lawn debris style bag you can get from Walker through your dealer or I believe you can get similar ones from say Landscaper's Supply or another mail order co. It does take two people to dump this style bag into your truck or to move them around, when they are full. Setup number two is a tailgate or trailer mount vacuum loader which many around here do use. Setup bumber three is one I like a lot for all kinds of purposes. You have a custom second gate put on the front of your trailer to back the mower into the back of your truck. This works quite nicely and even better if you have a flatbed (dumpbed) truck. These are just the ideas I can remember off the top of my head. Hope they help.

BTW I bag grass sometimes too actually a few of my accounts on a weekly basis :eek: :)

[walker-talker]

I have considered all these options and have decided that in my case, the trailor-ramp-truck is the way to go. Here in the next few weeks I am going to purchase an arc welder and build my own. For the price it would be to have the work done a guy could buy his own welder. I don't catch much of my grass (mainly scalp jobs), otherwise I might choose another option.
Matt

[Turfdude]

We sometimes have to catch our grass w/ our rider too. We have a PECO on our ZTR. Place rider on curb, place a small tarp in street under 2 - 60 gal barrels side by side and dump contents --does the trick. Whatever misses the barrels, is sure to land on the tarp. Hauling & disposal are not that big a deal around here as the dump is < 10 mins. and grass disposal is $8.50/cu.yd. Get charged for 4 yards & trucks hold 6. It is all figured into mowing fee and usually only have to bag May-June, and possibly Sept-Oct.

[gene gls]

I dump on the ground or the pavement and use a long handle manure fork and pitch into the truck.

Gene

[casey]

Originally posted by HacMan91
. . The exmark with the mulch deck eliminated most of our bagging but we still bag some.

Try the Exmark or an SFS deck without mulch kit to eliminate all bagging in thick turf. Or doubles & mulch kit for leaves. Never bag again. Don't care how thick the leaves & turf are, this practice can be avoided.

[dlandscaping]

a fellow neighbor and lco has a toro walker lookalike. he used to have a dump with a vac on it but he traded for an f450 with grain dump and no longer uses the vac. what he does is shovel out the grass. he uses one of those big plastic gray shovels at lesco ad home depot and it takes him about 3-5 shovel fulls that he tosses into the truck and then sweeps the missed stuff and shovels that pile right up into truck. total time to dump approx 1 min.

[eslawns]

Reluctantly.

If I do bag, it costs a lot, and there has to be a good reason. I just want it that way won't get it.

When I do, I use my 36" Encore WB. I have a 39 gallon trash can which I line with clear plastic bags. I cut several 3" holes in the bottom of the trash can so I can pull out full bags. WHen I finish I load up all the bags.

[MuskTurfKing]

I like The GroundsKeepers idea, maybe make a wooden box on the trailer and dump in there and put a tarp over it...I don't bag, if I do, I bag with the 21".

Hank

[accuratelawn]

Put sides on your trailer. Dump onto trailer. Prior to dumping place a 4x4 same width as trailer with a chain attached to either end (10 feet or so).
When you are done for the day or the trailer is full, go to the dump. Hook the chains to the Walker and pull the pile of leaves/grass out the back of the trailer. This will pull out 90% of the debris. Beats racking.

[LAWNGODFATHER]

Let's see. How many of you that gave answers, actualy bag grass and dispose of the clippings.

WET grass is very heavy. Dry grass is still heavy.

A 1 acre lawn will give you about 4,000 pounds of grass clippings. Depending on how much your cutting off. Also in the spring if your cutting a lawn that is 12" tall and cut it to 3.5" it will be very heavy to haul away.

The best way to bag grass is, mulch the clippings up.

I don't see the need to bag the clippings. It is actualy more costly to do, for fert reasons, and disposal reasons.

Mowing a lawn two times can be 3 times faster than bagging.

[taz72373]

I have some yards that I bag grass and some that I don't. My commercial yards that I have, have think grass do to extra grass seed fertilizers and lime to make a thinker greener grass. So I get payed to mow once a week and if we have enough rain I have to mow twice a week which in my contracts if I mow more than the normal agreed upon (1 a week or every other week) I get payed extra for. But any way what I am getting to is if there is a curb pick up by the city or town where you have to bag the grass dump the grass at the curb or if there is a patch of woods of the yard see if you can just dump the clippings there.


Thomas Lariviere

Thomas Lawn Care
Mt. Pleasant NC

[kutnkru]

When I first started out I had a metal dump style catcher with a rope attached and at the end of every pass as I made the swing I would dump the clippings in my perimeter cut.

Then like a PITA I would go back thru and rake the clippings into cans and then chunk them into the back of the truck. I too agree that if you can double cut it you will be not practicing better mowing techniques but saving yourself an awful lot of wasted time.

If I was in your situation I would opt for the trailering idea. Possibly check with a local welder to see about getting a ramp built into the side of your trailer.

[cantoo]

We have equipment to do the property any way we want. Some properties we do are tendered and have to be done according to the tender forms, no exceptions or we lose the job and pay the difference. Baseball diamonds they want the grass removed so we use the Walker there, each diamond is about 6 dumps in the trailer cut every week. We dump onto a tarp and pull it off with the Walker. The soccer fields can be discharged so of course that is what we do there. Unless it is tournament time then we collect and and the dumping area is right next to the field. Residentials, we do whichever works better for us and the customer pays for.

[PaulJ]

I would love not to bag grass. I side discharge whenever I can but I still have to bag at least 50-60% of the time right now. :( Some lawns just have to be bagged some or most of the time, and some people just don't understand the advantages of NOT bagging- I'm trying to educate them but its slow going. :mad: Also my current equip. isn't set up to mulch, I tried doubles but felt like it was too much for my lesco 36" WB. might try 1 set of high lift gators next year to at least ruduce the volume of clippings.:) I currently haul the cippings in my 77 GMC 1/2 T PU with a tarp underneath. It can be quite a load sometimes, but grass clippings are part of the biz:D

[65hoss]

There is a guy with a Walker that cuts a lawn across the street from my house. He bags everything. He uses the "walker bags" and just leaves them at the street for the city service to handle. Works for him.

That is why I use the exmark mulching kits. Get the bagged look without bagging.

[Randy J]

A 1 acre lawn will give you about 4,000 pounds of grass clippings. Depending on how much your cutting off. Also in the spring if your cutting a lawn that is 12" tall and cut it to 3.5" it will be very heavy to haul away.
[/B]

Does anyone know the weight of dry grass and dry leaves per cubic yard? One of my possible business ventures next year is a nursery. I would like to get a vacumn setup and pick up leaves, as well as grass clippings - for any yards I have to bag. Then I would use this debris to make compost which I could then resell at the nursery. The state will allow up to 10 tons of yard debris without any special permit. More than that and you have to notify the neighbors, let the state know that you notified them and get a permit. Not a big deal really, but why involve the government if you don't have to?!

Randy

[LAWNGODFATHER]

No it varies too much.

Also that is not real good compost. I would not buy it.

One of the Munis give this back to the prop owners and it has all the debris that is sucked up in the fall. EVERY thing.

Grass

Gum balls

Twigs

Leaves

Dog poop

Pine needles

Pine cones

Accorn

Diseases

Old crap mulch


The only thing it would be good for, is for you to use to heel the plants in.

Good Luck in your venture!!!

[PRECISION LC]

thanks all for your advice. i asked this question so for futrure bagging oppertunities it would be easier. i agree with most of you and would rather do a double mow than bag, and i normally do. i just wanted to make my life easier and releave the pain in my back.
thanks
kyle:blob2:

[captdevo]

:confused: jeeeeezzzzzz if you don't bag, don't post

this is the biggest problem with most posts, people replying with comments and opinions that aren't related to the question or comment at hand



Kyle asked a question because he, like alot of others do catch clippings.



i use Rubbermaid type storage containers (Wal-mart) to dump in (they make some rectangular ones that fit perfectly under hopper)

if i can't leave the clippings somewhere on the property

[MOW ED]

You don't have to explain to me why you do or don't bag. I have a Walker and I do both. It is quite profitable under the circumstances that I bag and I wouldn't be without it.

Here is a pic of my setup. Happy bagging.

[walker-talker]

What you are using is the set-up that I have been wanting to go to. Do you have any other pics that show where the gates are attached to your trailor. I have an idea how to build this, but am open to new ideas.
Thanks!

[G.Williams]

We only bag what we have to. Some contractor in this are won't bag and we pick up the account, just charge accordingly for what the customer wants. If they want to pay for bagging, far be it from me to argue for more money.

[fshrdan]

I have the 9.5 bushel hopper too. Sometimes I wish I had the 7 bushel. I haven't found any bags big enough to fit over the mouth of the 9.5 hopper yet. I normally dump in a compost area that I back up to. If it's inaccessible to the Walker, I dump into a large nylon lawn bag that I got from A.M. Leonard, then take that to the compost area.

I never dump clippings directly into my truck bed or trailer. They are harder to remove. I use the Walker bags, pile them up in the truck, then I'll remove them from the truck to my compost area at night. Very managable size for one person, and no tarp dragging. I also reuse the bags, since they are upwards of $60/100 bags.

Whenever possible I use the no-catch deflector with my Walker to avoid handling clippings.

Daniel