Replacing the garden shears

[Stephen]

The current set are ok but the damage to my left hand little finger means that the jarring impact frequently results in pain.
Also, despite my poor attentions, they don't hold an edge for very long. They have seen 20 years of service and could see more if someone more skilled sharpened them, I think.

On the allotment they are used mostly to trim the grassed paths.

Options for the future:
New shears with better cushioning
Battery strimmer
Petrol strimmer
Scythe (could double up as prop for New Year fancy dress parties)

[Tony Hague]

I went through a similar dilemma with my allotment. How to trim the grass paths ? Shears took too much valuable time. Strimmers are a bit noisy. I'm dubious about the battery life of cordless ones. The scythe option sounds fun,but I figured that the are not really the tool for narrow paths where there isn't space to take a proper swing. So, I added a few options to your list:

Buy a generator to power the mains electric tools I already had - expensive, but might be useful for other things.

Push mower - but it is a bit rough for that.

Get rid of the grass paths in favour of something that doesn't need trimming.

I went for the latter, and skimmed off and stacked the turves to make loam, replacing them with a layer of corrugated cardboard and woodchip. It still needs some weeding and topping up each year, but it seems less work, and tidier, than the grass, And a lot less messy in this wet weather.

[Elaine]

We had the same problem. We do have a petrol strimmer but I hated the grass cuttings being flung far and wide. Not only that but I can't use the damn thing...the vibration of it makes me feel really peculiar!

We were lucky enough to acquire a lot of paving slabs so made a path with them and it has made a world of difference. We still get the dreaded couch grass growing underneath them but it's easier than dealing with a fully grassed pathway.

[Jude]

I'm getting on very well with my recently acquired push mower, though I did level off the humps and hollows and re-seeded before starting with it.
Previously I have had battery strimmer (hopeless), small scythe ( good where long grass is the right type, ie. not 'slippery') and petrol strimmer (hard work, noisy, unreliable and made my hands tingle). Think it has to be horses for courses. Not enough room for a horse on my plot though.

[Geoff]

I've long advocated solid paths but I have the advantage of a garden rather than an allotment.
When I was young we had a strange piece of kit at home. It was like shears with two wheels and long handles like lawn edge trimmers. I suppose you could call it a horizontal edge trimmer on wheels. I wonder if anybody still makes a similar device?

[adam-alexander]

How much grass path do you have to maintain? - Is it worth considering a cheap, possibly secondhand rotary petrol mower? (the wheeled type not a Flymo) - and do you have somewhere secure to store it.

a-a

[Stephen]

Hi everyone
Thank you for your contributions.
The two paths are shared in that they separate one plot from the next. I end up doing them because the first is shared with an elderly gent (he must be in his 80s) and on the other side there are two plots and no one appears interested.
Regarding converting them to hard surfaces: I have made some of the internal paths into hard surfaces with sieved out stones and this is taking time already.
Tony: interesting idea about the generator because it would allow me to use the shredder there too. You are also right about the time spent cutting the paths. It may be just two paths (either of the two long sides) but it does take a couple of hours on my knees.
Jude: I don't think a push mower will do because of the rough ground.
Geoff: I can picture the device but have not seen one; I'm not sure how they would cope with the ground either.
Adam: the problem with a rotary, I think, would be that, on a narrow path, the wheels would constanly be off it (and the ground drops away in some aprts then a fruit cage comes up right up to the path elsewhere. I do have a shed (already full!) for storage but (and the same goes for the generator) it would probably have to be brought back to the garage for the winter.

It has helped me think things through and, as I am about to go up there, I will think further on this.

[peter]

There are a number of rotary mowers with a rear roller. I use an elderly, second or third hand to me Hayter Harrier.

[Monika]

We have all grass paths on the allotment, most of them on a slope, including sideways slopes, and we use a Flymo petrol mower on them which has the same cutting width as the paths. It's hard work controlling the mower, particularly on the sideways sloping ones, but it does a very neat job. As my OH also uses the mower on the way between the car and the allotment (about 300m) and the surrounding area, it's worth using this biggish machine. We then use long-handled angled shears to neaten the edges of the allotment paths.

We are not allowed to have solid paths on the allotments, only natural materials, but things like bark chippings would simply be washed down the slopes.

I certainly would not advise a scythe, Stephen. My OH does a lot of scything on our local nature reserve and it's not easy for close cutting.