[iamthelawnbarber]

I have a couple clients with fruit trees-apples, peaches, pears. Do you guys stop and pick it up or do you just mow over it? Or pound it into the ground with your tires?

 

[jimithing31]

I have a couple clients with fruit trees-apples, peaches, pears. Do you guys stop and pick it up or do you just mow over it? Or pound it into the ground with your tires?

I deal with some customers that have citrus trees down here in FL. I have asked them all to make sure that fruit is off ground on day of mow. If it's there I mulch it. Well they never pick them up and they don't exactly come out as mulch. They get crushed tossed out in half across the yard... Etc.

Never had one complain, and sorry but I am NOT picking up 15-20 pieces of rotting fruit everytime I mow.

 

[billslawn89]

i pretty much just kick them to the trunk of the tree. i told all my client that i do not pick up fruit...

 

[Sweet Tater]

I just make apple sauce out of them, sounds kinda neat when the gator blade get ahold of them:laugh:

 

[DA Quality Lawn & YS]

Good thread...I would say if you know a particular cust. of yours has fruit trees, before they bear fruit, speak to them about it and what your policy is (will pick up before mow for extra charge, will mow over, cust. needs to pick up, etc). That way when the trees drop fruit you and the cust. know what to expect.

It really is best not to just mow over windfall apples or the like. Attracts bugs to the area and the remaining fruit on the tree.

 

[Mickhippy]

Love hitting a rotten orange with the trimmer! Almost as bad a dog poo!
I dont pick 'em up!

 

[Kennedy Landscaping]

Funny, I just mowed a lawn in the rain tonight and smashed about twenty to thirty pears that where on the ground. I don't have time to sit and pick all of them up and take them to the customer and say have a nice day.

 

[Scagguy]

I have a customer that has 5 huge peach trees in her backyard. I have asked her a number of times to get them off of the ground before we mow. Finally one day my crew had enogh of it and mulched them. Next thing you know, the customer is on the phone to me complaining that she has bees all over her yard because we mulched the peaches. I explained again that we are there to mow, not pick up rotten fruit. She got the message.....haven't seen a peach on the ground all season.

 

[Nosmo]

If the customer doesn't care enough about what falls from the tree I'd mow over it. If I was in Florida and a ripe orange fell while I was mowing I'd save that one.

Nosmo

 

[leon2245]

I would P.U. rotting fruit before I would dog feces (or human F.T.M.)!

 

[Roger]

In this area, fruit trees are having a banner year. This includes cherries much earlier, and now apples. I have several customers with many scrub apple trees, and they are loaded with scrub apples. In the past two weeks, they are falling by the thousands. In some places, walking over the ground is like walking on marbles. This is a year unlike any other for falling apples.

I don't pick up any of them. Certainly none of them are any good for eating (except the deer are having a field day!). I mow over them -- some get cut up a bit, most remain in tact because they are too small to interfere.

 

[Leaf Jockey]

We pick them up. If it takes a long time they get billed. Our job is to maintain the property, not create new problems.

Scott

 

[mattfromNY]

I've never picked up fruit before, just run it over.
We, too are having a great year for fruit and nuts- last week on a job site, I stepped on a black walnut about the size of my fist, and rolled my ankle. Ended up with a pretty bad ankle sprain, all black and blue and swollen, but not broken.