Those two pictures were taken from my kitchen window. How cool is that?!
Our backyard is the low point of our property, meaning that it will remain too wet to mow for months. Especially, after a spring as wet as this year’s.
When it comes to problem areas like that, the best options are:
- Ignore it and leave it be
- Wait until it can be mowed (which could end with you having pollen pelting you in the face depending on the grass’ height)
- Bush hog it, which is a lot easier than mowing but can become expensive depending on the area’s size and frequency of cutting.
- Bale it
- Put animals on it
While we had considered baling the grass into hay, the ground was too bumpy and we found the ground, also, to be too wet for the hay to properly dry even in July.
So, why not have the cattle just eat it instead!?
We used plastic step in posts and made a fence with two lines of electric wire. One line of wire can be sufficient, but in the spring we still have some young calves who like to sneak under the single strand. Thus, why we opt for two strands of wire when putting the cattle in the backyard.
You can see in the pictures just how tall the grass in our backyard can get. Imagine having to mow that! And, yes, we could hire someone to bush hog. However, it was easier for us to take advantage of the opportunity for extra pasture.
Here is the backyard after only a couple days of the cattle being on it:
Cleaned up enough for easy mowing and a herd of cattle with full bellies!