It is too easy to reach for a power tool (in this case the strimmer) and attempt to blast your way through a job when in reality a much better tool that is cheaper, easier and far more effective may be just around the corner. So when faced with keeping some overgrown field margins tidy I decided to put the strimmer to one side and try my hand at using a scythe (whilst keeping my top on).

The grass has been growing like crazy recently and keeping up has been a bit of a challenge.  The strimmer really wasn’t cutting it (ha ha) as the head was repeatedly getting wrapped up in the long grass and I was having to change the batteries every 20 minutes or so which was a real pain. I really needed to make some progress on this and so I ordered a basic scythe in the hope it would get me back on track again and below is a before and after photo of a stretch I worked on today.

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Yes, I know it looks rough but I was really pleased with the results and had already done the other side of the fence. It took me about 40 minutes to complete the length all the way long to the tree at the end of the fence line and whilst my technique is undoubtedly very amateur the grass is now down to below 6 inches and cleared off to one side ready for the strimmer.  

The scythe is great, way better than the strimmer for this kind of work and I wish I had tried it sooner.  It definitely gives you a thorough workout – the layers were coming off one by one but I managed to keep my t-shirt on… so I didn’t go full Poldark… this time.