Gnarlyoak

So has anyone got anything on the go yet? Albeit this cold snap may deter some from even thinking its worthwhile at the moment. Since my last post, I've managed to get all my beds turned over and manured, with the exception of the "root crop" bed. One of the firms I work for rent yard space on a cattle farm. So I was able to fill up my little van with a few bags of well rotted cow manure. Yum! During the fasle dawn spring before this weeks return to winter I managed to plant out my onions (Unwins - 50 assorted) yellow; white & red. Garlic - white & red (Unwins again). Shallots - Red Gourmet (yep Unwins again). Some of the garlic I have planted in the root bed as companion plants for my carrots. I have had terrible problems with carrot fly, something I've read suggested planting garlic with carrots as it masks the scent (of the carrots). Moderatly successful last year. Although this was backed up with two applications of "Nemasys" a nematode biological control for carrot fly and a few other veggie munching beasties. Carrot seeds sown - Resistafly & Nandor (both with some resistance to carrot fly), in the same bed I've also sown parsnips - Gladiator. Red & white spring onion seed sown & some Pak Choi - Ruby in the salad bed. Thats all thats in the ground at the moment, may sow some brassicas and peas this wk/end, but they will be in pots and kept under cover until at least May time before planting out. Seed potatoes are chitting at the moment, and hoping to get them in the ground by the end of this month. Once its had chance to start warming up again after this current cold spell. Three varieties on the go. 1st early - Casablanca; 2nd early - Albrt Bartlett - Anya & main crop - Albrt Bartlett - Apache

Yes mate you can advertise your services any time you like. However, as others have already mentioned getting some experience under your belt should be the next logical step! I passed CS30,31,38,39 all in the same month, but it was probably 3-4 yrs before I could competently and confidently tackle most tree climbing scenarios. The courses are really only designed to teach you the basics and test your competency at learning the basics. Likewise, as advised if you're determined to go it alone you are recommened to ensure that you have public liability insurance for yourself and employers liability insurance to cover you if you bring someone to help you, even on a casual basis.

awesome. I would love to have a crack at that.........

Definately acceptable in my opinion. The hand signal guide you've been directed to has been produced by the Arborist Working Group, and reports to the Arboricultural Association. So should be accepted as an appropriate industry standard. If a potential employer can't accept that, then they are probably not worth working for aside from the fact that they would also probably be breaking some kind of equal opportunities law.

To be fair since everything evolved from the same 1 in a multi-billion chance original single celled bacterium 4 billion years ago, we alll share the same genes. Be you amoeba; fern; monkey; gnat; human or a stick of celery! Genetically we all share the same strands of DNA, albeit that the higher the lifeform, the greater number of genes and chromosomes and order in which they are arranged are significantly different. Thats why you do'nt look like a stick of celery with a monkey's face! So the tomatoe; fish; goat and spider already have the same genes as the human; platypus; aye aye & brazil nut tree. Of course a tomatoes that can withstand sea pressure of 5km deep and goats that spin webs from their bum are not quite as useful as being able to grow wheat in the Sahara to feed the ever burgeoning human population. And that of course is the real problem. Human population growth (IMHO). Comparable to the size of even our own galaxy, let alone the universe, this tiny tiny planet cannot sustain an ever growing population with its wants and needs. If we want to save the world, then humanity will probably have to be wiped out. We will do it ourselves, eventually, but how much of our world will be left? There is only one solution, complete sterility of the human race with immediate effect, that will give us at leats 2-3 generations to right some of the wrongs we have done to this planet and give the rest of the organisms on this world a fighting chance to survive. As for fighting GM, you are a snowflake in a furnace. You've lost before you've begun. What you may have heard or read about so far, I am sure is not even the tip of the iceberg. As Private Fraser puts it: " We're all doomed Captain Mannering, were doomed"

Tis the worst, it absolutely stinks. I find that once my plants are a decent size the cats find it less easy to get in and make a scrape. In the meantime, if the ground is bare or is seeded/has seedlings the best deterrent I have found is to place a few "thorny" hawthorn branches across the bed. Noses, paws, bumholes, they dont like a pointy hawthorn tip up 'em!

Bloody hell! Thats not a plot, thats a chuffin field is that, you even need a bloomin tractor to turn it over. Bigger does'nt mean better you know. Whadda ya hope to sow, and do you plan to feed the world?

Hi guys, Given the level of discussion, thought I'd add a few notes about the particular circumstances of this tree. Firstly, the identification of the funghi. Not from my internal encyleopeadic knowledge, which sadly does'nt exist. I simply compared the pictures I had taken with the photographs in the AA's guide "Funghi on Trees". Rigidoporus ulm. seemed the nearest fit. But I am quite prepared to be wrong (and re-educated), I usually am.... To help with the context, I should of course taken a photo before the tree was felled. but, it was my first day back following a 4 mnth lay off after an accident, and all I wanted to do was get back in the harness, get up the tree and smell the exhaust off my MS200. The tree was a Beech, which had grown in the shadow of a large Sycamore. Consequently the tree had a significant lean of approx 50 degs and the stem had grown in an "S" shape due to phototropic response once the crown had left the shadow of the adjacent tree. The tree had a large wound on the underside of the 50 deg. lean, approx 1m above ground level and extended approx 2.5m up the length of the stem. there were two fb's growing from the wound area, 1 just above the base of the wound and the 2nd about 0.5m from the top of the wound. There was some die back through some of the secondary laterals in the uppermost area of the crown. This dieback probably accounted for less than 10% of the total crown area. Some months previously, the large Sycamore that had originally overshadowed this beech was removed because it too had succumbed to some pathogen or other (sorry I don't know what), but it was pretty knackered and had been condemned by the LA TO. Somehow the TO at the time of inspection failed to notice the leaning Beech next door, with the large wound and the fruiting bodies! But why did they have to be removed at all and not just managed? The potential targets and the better safe than sorry attitude that prevails. Directly opposite both trees, is a busy road and a primary school. On the otherside, and directly underneath the trees are two bungalows, part of an elderly persons sheltered housing community. The bases of both these trees were no more than 5m away from the 2 bungalows that were felt to be most at risk should either of these fail, in part or in total. It was assessed that given the risks involved, due to their location and proximity to potential targets, that removal was preferable to any long term ongoing management.

So VOSA are out in Norway, pulling over UK registered vehicles and dipping their tanks to see if they're using cherry! Aye?! Just tell them in Swedish "you know nothing" and quickly move on, they have no jurisdiction. Of course if they pass on your details to the Norwegian VOSA equivalent, then you are screwed. Expect an early shower searching for the soap with your cell mate before you enjoy lashings of porridge for brekkers.

SHOW US YOUR ROBINS Normally every time you go into your garden and start doing some work, you inevitably suddenly find a robin pops looking for an easy meal. So whilst I started to turn over my beds last weekend this is the little chap who paid me a visit and relieved me of a few worms. Gladly given for a couple of hours of his amusing company. Got as close as about 5-6ft from me.

Since the weather was most clement over the last weekend, I started to tidy up my plot and turn over the beds, I also took the opportunity to take a few shots of my "guerilla" allottment to share. Practically all the material is recycled or sourced locally, bricks & stone are what I dug up when I originally cultivated the area. Compost bin made from pallets, hazel hurdel made myself the sourced from the canalside nearby as was the willow used in the fedge (fence/hedge). Shots 9 & 10 give some idea of what the are looked like before I cultivated it, shot 7 shows a small tree sapling nursery.

Couple of shots of a section from a Beech felled at the end of Jan, showing the extent of the decay radiating back from the fruiting bracket of Rigidous ulmarious. Same brackets, two shots showing top and bottom.

Sun yesterday and sun again today. Sun two days on the trot, now there's a luxury. Guess that was spring and summer, expect it be grey when I return to work on Monday and rain til bloody christmas, bit like last year........

Ow ow ow. That had me wincing. Good luck with the op and heal quick mate.

Also worth having a look on the Bay. Saw a pair of rail spec Pfanners go for £80 a few months ago. They had been worn once!

Having read through the attached document, in the section "What Does The Law Say" here is the 1st item on the list of products covered by the act...... Regulation. The legislation applies to a wide range of timber and timber products. It does not, however, cover all timber and timber products. A comprehensive list of products covered by the law can be found here. Timber and timber products as classified in the Combined Nomenclature set out in Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 [1], to which this Regulation applies. 4401 Fuel wood, in logs, in billets, in twigs, in faggots or in similar forms; wood in chips or particles; sawdust and wood waste and scrap, whether or not agglomerated in logs, briquettes, pellets or similar forms

Which is precisely how a Dutch business man, bought horsemeat from a company in Romania and sold it as beef to a company in France, who processed it into food for the human foodchain at their factory in Belgium who shipped to the UK, Germany, Scandinavia ETC.

Stihl listed (eh eh.... see what I did there ) Reported to the Bay, fakety fakety fake fake fake!

Nice one. Cheers for that Paul, that is a useful link & £35 is much more manageable.

They caught my old man just a couple of weeks ago. They even got him to agree to allow them to connect to his PC remotely, and ran god knows what on his computer, which I can only imagine trawls through looking for any information stored on there. Luckily my parents are not tech savvy enough to do any banking or financial stuff, and rarely buy anything online, so I (and they) can only hope they have'nt lost any sensitive information. What angered me more than anything was to see the pain in my dad's face when I explained to him it was a scam, and the extreme discomfort it caused him knowing that he had been duped. I would'nt like to see the people who do this put against a wall and shot. Thats far to quick. I'd nail them to a wall and leave them to die slowly and painfully from thirst & hunger.

Come on Spud, put Jon and the rest of us out of his misery and post a Youtube, step by step, how to port your MS361 vid. Ta.

Erm.... Have you got your wires crossed mate? BS3998 is a document (book) that sets out a generic set of British Standards recommended for tree work carried out by tree care companies in the UK. It's not a qualification that you study for as far as I am aware. You buy the book, (its only £184 to download a PDF copy ) you read the relevant section on "Tree Surgery" and incorporate the recommendations into your everyday work practices. Of course you don't really buy the book, unless you've got lots of money to burn, in which case buy yourself some new kit, then borrow a copy of BS3998, read through, implement recommendations to any areas where you feel you're not compliant, then return book to rightful owner. Congratulations you've passed. Your certificate is in the post.

Bloody 'ell, how do you carry 5-6 ton of timber in the back of a transit..... legally!! Is your name Shamus, and do you live in a caravan, anywhere you damn well please?

Done.

As well as insurance, you will probably have to register with your local authority, and you will have to have a CRB check, even if you only intend to work with adults. Adults with a handicap are, and I hate to use this expression, classed as vunerable, therefore you'll need a CRB check to make sure your not the sort of person to take advantage of vunerable people. Sorry I can't offer you some more practical advice in answer to response your original question. It is a nice idea though, and wish you every success with it. Keep us update on this forum with how you get on.