This week marks seven years since I began this blog, Growing The Home Garden. It’s amazing to see how many changes have taken place in the garden and in my life since that late October day. When I started this blog our backyard was vacant of trees, plants, and anything resembling a garden. It’s grown and so has our family. When I began blogging our oldest daughter was 2 and the next one was due to be born that Thanksgiving. Now there are four kids running around the garden, 3 girls and 1 boy. Everyday is an adventure! My little garden blog grew from barely anyone reading it (or even knowing it existed) into one that now gets a couple thousand visitors a day. My experiences in plant propagation, vegetable gardening, and assorted other garden projects have given me opportunities to work with great companies like Lowe’s, Troy-Bilt, and several others along the way. It’s been a good 7 years!
Most of all though I have to thank you for being a reader. Without your visits, shares, and comments on this blog and in social media it wouldn’t have grown to what it is now. It is because of this that I love doing what I get to do next…give something away! The folks at Troy-Bilt sent me one of their newest products for the yard, the Jet Blower. They also told me that I get to give one away to a reader of Growing The Home Garden! For my 7 year blogging anniversary I thought that giving one lucky reader a Jet Blower would be perfect.
Here’s a little about the Jet Blower from Troy-Bilt.
Before I review the Troy-Bilt Jet Blower, I think it is important to note that I have never used a blower for garden use before. I’ve always been able to manage with the mowers and weedeaters to take care of cleaning up leaves and debris from mowing. That being said I can definitely see some good uses for a blower. Blowers can take a lot of the work out of raking leaves in the fall. They can easily cleanup the grass clippings from the street which will keep the clippings from entering gutters and drainage areas. Back in the days when I was a band director our band kids and parents used blowers to cleanup the trash after football games. Blowers can definitely be useful!
The Jet blower was very easy to put together, any easier and it would have been fully assembled. It had three parts for me to assemble: the engine/blower area and two parts for the spout of the blower. The parts snapped easily together with a small twist and it was ready for gas. The Troy-Bilt Jet has a two-cycle engine and needs a mixture of gas and oil to strike the proper balance. The first bit of oil was provided in the box and I mixed it together with a gallon of gas then loaded the Jet. Don’t mix the oil in the tank. Just get a small 1 gallon gas can for easy mixing.
The Jet blower started up very easily. The start up instructions are on the side of the Jet for easy reference. Once I started the Jet I took care of clearing the grass from my driveway with a few minutes then proceeded to take care of some leaves in the back. Overall it did great and can definitely hang with all the other leaf blowers marketed for backyard use.
Noise is always a concern with power equipment like the Jet. I was really surprised by how quiet it was. It still makes a lot of noise (anything with a gas powered engine will) but it is much quieter than other blowers on the market. It has a decibel rating of 71.8.
Now you can have one of these for your backyard garden! All you need to do is comment here on this post and tell me what you do with your fall leaves? Do you compost them? Use them as mulch? Grind them in the lawn? Or blow them into big piles your kids (or you) can jump in? After 7 days (Nov. 4th) I’ll draw from the names in the comments and one winner will be chosen. You need to be within the continental United States to win a Jet.
Thank you for reading, don’t forget to follow on the Facebook page, and please share this contest with your friends and family. Who knows, maybe one of them will let you borrow the Jet if they win!
I gather/mulch my leaves and grass clippings with my mower (using bag attachment) and spread on vegetable for mulch that will degrade into compost. That looks like a pretty pimp blower!
We are moving Friday to our first home with a lot of yard (been in a townhome with container gardening). Looking forward to having our boys jump in leaves for the first time! Cannot wait to get to work around the pecan trees and learn more about gardening!
We recycle our leaves!
I bag the first round or two of fallen leaves with the mower and add them in thick layers to the gardens. I then use any remaining leaves to fill up the compost tumbler. Once the next round of leaves fall I rake them to the curb for the city to remove. Anything that falls after that is mulch into the grass. Having 40+ trees on 1/2 an acre is really great until fall hits!
We compost all of our leaves.
We rake up the leaves in the front yard with all the acorns, and dump them in the woods in the backyard. They end up being used as compost.
We have an incredible amount of leaves due to the fact that we have many big oaks on our property, so we rake the leaves and pile them near the woods to use for next year's garden mulch and to add to compost. We have lots of raking left to do this year!
Taking care of leaves on my wooded lot is a chore. I have a crew that comes once a year to blow leaves into areas for mulch, but I spend a lot of raking and mowing leaves. Imagine the money I could save if I had a blower and didn't have to hire that out!!
We rake them into a big pile and let the basset hounds romp through them for a little while… then they become compost!
we compost ours and use them as mulch. we have 3 large trees on the property and no blower! great blog!
First of all, I want to tell you that, I absolutely agreed with what you had mentioned in this post. Its a very nice tips about landscaping services. And everyone should go with it.
frank lopez,
Landscaping Supplies
We have two very old large Water Oaks just outside our back porch door….and the leaves can get a bit nerve wracking to someone who like tidiness in the yard—ME! (giggle). We mostly choose to blow those oak leaves into the wooded areas on our property, mostly because that particular oak leaf does not dissipate quickly, making it hard to use in my flower gardens. At other times we will mulch them into the grass with our mower. Thank you!
We do all four! I compost lots until the composter is full (which doesn't take long) and some I mulch back into the lawn. When they start falling heavier I use the lawnmower bag and dump the collected ones into my beds for winter protection. The areas where they collect that don't get mowed we rake and rake and bag, then add to the beds. The dog enjoys undoing all my hard work, at times. 🙂 …thanks for a chance to own this best of a blower!
We put all of our leaves into the garden to compost overwinter. In the spring, we rake it all back and reveal the BEAUTIFUL soil! Then, as our seedlings grow, we use the leaves for mulch; which cuts down drastically on watering!!
We started using our leaves as mulch this year, hoping that it cuts down on the weeds in the garden.
I like to add my leaves to my compost!
I like to rake them into piles, then jump on them a bit for fun, and then cart off to woods.
We add them to the compost
I like to rake them into piles for the kids and then I mulch them up for the gardens.
Thanks for this opportunity and congratulations! I like to compost my leaves plus pile them up for the grandchildren to play in. I just love the sound of walking in the leaves too. I've been working on a new area at the side of our yard since Spring. It has several sitting areas with moss pathways. Also homemade swings for the kids. Its in a area with large trees all around so a blower would the perfect solution.