One of the priority jobs for my “holiday” was mowing the meadow, cutting back all this year’s growth so it can be raked up and removed, helping to reduce the soil fertility to encourage the flowers and discourage the grasses. The Austrian scythe is the perfect tool for this job – quieter and no more difficult or time consuming than using a two-stoke brushcutter. This section of the garden is about 840 square meters (60 x 14; just over 1/5 of an acre) and took about 8 hours in total, over a couple of days.
Scything is more about skill than brute strength but it’s quite a (low-impact, aerobic) workout. A lot of the skill is in sharpening the blade – especially the peening to create a hard, thin edge (which I’m getting better at – though it’s tough only getting chance to properly practice once a year).
Scything the Wildflower Meadow by Marsh Flatts Farm Self Build Diary is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.