If you have an urgent message (like if you’ve discovered a yellow jacket nest in your lawn and it is due to be mowed that week) please call the main Pedal People phone line at (413) 586-8591, and the Secretary on duty can directly get a message to the worker-owner who is mowing for you. For any other messages for the yardcare team, the preferred way to reach us is by emailing yardcare@pedalpeople.coop. We will be sure to respond to your email within 1 week, unless it is more timely. If you prefer a phone call rather than email, you may call the Pedal People line listed above and we’ll coordinate calling you back.
The short answer is–it depends where you live, but most customers may select either weekly or biweekly service as the default for the season. There are periods of high and low growth when lawns may need more (or less) frequent mowing than initially selected. We try to be flexible and can often switch from biweekly to weekly when needed, but this may not be possible at all locations. We usually know which lawns need adjustments and will be in communication with you.
Regular mowing takes place Monday through Friday between 8 am and 6 pm, weekly or biweekly. While it may happen on the same day each week, the day and time may also vary since we work around weather, share equipment, and have other jobs. Occasionally, it's helpful for us to start mowing early at 7 am, go later into the evening until sunset, or mow on weekends. When you sign up you can let us know if there are any restrictions on when we can work in your yard. Note: when you get your bill, you will see your mowing listed as having happened on the Sunday of the week it was scheduled for - as opposed to the exact date it happened.
We use relatively quiet electric lawn mowers to cut and mulch grass clippings into the lawn (which returns nutrients to the soil) and use a string trimmer to do simple edging if needed. Typically, we don’t sweep or clear walkways, but most of our worker-owners are flexible and willing to adjust their work at the customer’s request, such as doing more edging or clearing walkways of grass clippings. We want to hear from you if you have feedback on how we’re doing in your yard, and are also happy to schedule a walk-through with you to make sure we’re all on the same page.
Yard care work is weather dependent, and sometimes nature and schedules do not align. In these instances, we will try our best to not stray far from our regular, pre-planned schedule. We will be in communication if we need to make bigger changes in order to ultimately return to schedule. As always, we only charge for the work we actually do.
We prioritize doing spring and fall clean-ups for our mowing customers. During the season, our workers may have capacity to do additional yard work beyond mowing - it is best to reach out to us via yardcare@pedalpeople.coop and ask.
We set our prices to cover our collective costs and pay our worker-owners a fair, living wage. Currently (as of January 2026), we aim to price lawns at $70/hour of mowing time, with a minimum of $38. Currently our pricing for non-mowing jobs (gardening, weeding, raking, etc) is $60/hr. Our prices include the hauling of equipment to and from your house by bicycle trailer, maintenance of our equipment, and administrative work needed to tie it all together. Community-funded financial assistance is available. We typically send bills monthly after completing the work.
If you need to skip a mow, please email yardcare@pedalpeople.coop by the Saturday before service. If you are a biweekly customer, you may have to wait until your next regularly scheduled mow if we aren’t able to get to your lawn the following week.
Some customers have a lot of objects, such as furniture or dog toys, in their lawn. We will do our best to avoid mowing over or otherwise damaging these items by mowing around or moving them out of the way. Time spent taking these preventative measures will be included in the $70/hr charge. That being said, we tend to prioritize time cutting grass, so we may not always move items that are in the way, especially heavy ones. We ask that folks keep their lawns free of small items that are hard to see, and also to clean up after their dogs.