Kitchen Garden Forum

I am looking for something to keep the field we have here in spain in a neatish order , i have in the past spent days strimming it, then it rains and the weeds are 6 feet high again, ive paid local farmers with tractors and what they call a picadora which is a type of flail mower to do it but it is never done as i like it , i have been thinking of a ride on mower , as i have never used one i am frightened it might be money wasted i realise the different types will cut differently but can anyone give me an idea how or if they are strong enough to cut a rough field, even if i have to cut 6 or 7 times a year i would be happy to do that ,once the rains stop usually may the weeds do not grow but die only to germanate in november when the rains start again, to give an idea of what im up against the strimmer handles it with ease i have to use a steel blade on it or better still a speciel head that takes 4 mm diameter nylon, it normally takes me around 10 days but a younger person would do it in 5
cheers all

I take it that you are not cultivating the field,Robo,so is it of a size that you can rent it out to one of the local farmers to run sheep or goats or cattle or horses to graze the field?

Not horses - they're terrible managers of pasture!

Anybody got experience of these big boys' strimmers http://www.mowdirect.co.uk/dr-tr4-pro-x ... start.html - might better than a ride on.

The field has around a 100 old almond trees most passed their best, i have looked at self propelled bar mowers only problem is i have 2 arthritic knees and feet the field is around 200 x 38 meters part of it is uphill , goats would be ideal but this is a fruit growing area and not many around, the machine on geoffs link has a similar head to what we use on the strimmer except we use 4 lengths of nylon ,

Dear Robo,
look at the Stiga website. They have mowers to suit all grass types and they are excellent at going round trees and under bushes as some have a front mounted deck.
Regards Sally Wright.