Going down to Fort Myers, Florida, in the dead of winter is a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Especially when it’s for six weeks of testing walk-behind mowers, lawn tractors, and other mowing gear. We’ll be posting our Ratings in the coming weeks, in time for your springtime shopping. But until then, program leader Peter Sawchuk offers a rundown on our extensive tests in this video.

Sawchuk notes that although he’s been testing lawn gear for 30 years, more than 10 for Consumer Reports alone, “every year is interesting.” Want more specifics? Consider power steering, a feature that we’ve historically seen on garden tractors starting at $5,000. This year, however, it appears on two lawn tractors we’re testing: one John Deere tractor costing $4,000 and a $2,700 model from Cub Cadet.

Want to pay much less for a riding mower? We’ve tested the Troy-Bilt Neighborhood Rider TB30R, $1,000 at Lowe’s, the 30-inch riding mower we previewed earlier when manufacturer MTD gave us an exclusive look during last October’s Green Industry and Equipment Expo (GIE+Expo) in Louisville.

For the same price, you can get more exercise using the Toro Timemaster, a walk-behind mower with the same 30-inch deck size as the Troy-Bilt rider. What’s unusual about this unit is that, rather than the two hand controls typically found on large non-riding mowers, the TimeMaster has the same overall design as a 21-inch walk-behind mower—just bigger. Among differences are the twin 15-inch blades.

Closer to the low end of walk-behind mowers is a new Lawn Boy model that, at $300, is the lowest-priced model to include the variable-speed operation known as Personal Pace in manufacturer Toro’s line.