Have you been involved in “no-mow-May”? Leaving a patch of your garden to grow and flower to benefit wildlife? Letting things grow does leave you the challenge (opportunity?) of lots of tall vegetation later in the spring, or late summer. I’ve been learning to scythe, practicing on an area we’ve left to grow each spring and summer.

The Austrian scythe design is most popular for cutting fresh grass rather than the heavier English blades. Something to do with suitability for cutting grass in Alpine meadows I think, rather than cereal crops.

When set up right, the rhythm and swish of each stroke feels and sounds good as the blade slices (not cuts) through another swath of grass. A little turn of the wrists at the end of the stroke drops more cut grass off the blade onto the growing windrow.

After a few minutes of scything honing is required to re-sharpen the blade, using stones of different grit roughness, to remove some metal from the edge of the blade. Eventually more serious metal working is required to get a sharp edge again, with a process called peening. The edge of the blade is held between two parts of a mini-anvil called a peening jig. Tapping the top part of the jig with a hammer pinches the edge of the blade pulling out a few millimetres of thinner metal which is then re-honed.

It goes without saying that now the blade is (well, should be) fantastically sharp. Procedures at scything events work to keep people safe. The web-site of SABI, the Scythe Association of Britain and Ireland, has listings of scything events and training resources, if you’re interested to know more. Scything events are a lot of fun, including competitive mowing of 5x5 metre plots.

In those natural breaks while re-sharpening the blade I can’t help but notice the range of wildlife in the grass. As well as dandelions, red and white clover, there are buttercups and speedwell – but which species of each?

My knowledge of butterflies was limited to the showy things feeding on buddleia flowers. It turns out there are butterflies whose caterpillars feed on different types of grass. Back in March I found some tiny caterpillars deep in some un-mown areas. Those caterpillars are now becoming adult butterflies including the copper-orange Large skipper.

The no-mow strategy has produced many opportunities to learn to identify different groups of flora and fauna I’d never noticed before.

wharfedale-nats.org.uk