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headgroundsman

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Everything posted by headgroundsman

  1. I am disabled too. I am paralysed chest down due to a spinal cord injury. I prefer to do my gardening from my wheelchair at ground level by using tools that allow that. I personally am not keen on raise beds as I would end up sitting sideways and leaning over which is not great. Also I have 3 large veg beds and that would be a lot of raised beds. Just check this would suit your wife before starting. I did a job for someone a few years ago using soft wood "sleepers" and they only lasted about 7 years. I would think the thinner ones may even be better as the treatment should have penetrated further. I have made a few raised beds using decking boards on their sides and this have lasted better so far. Again about 7 years and no sign of rot yet. We have just put a raise bed in my garden for herbs and we made this out of old railway sleepers
  2. I personally think it is wrong to use any energy except solar to dry firewood. I know others may have a different opinion!
  3. I usually try a few runner beans early. I plant out early may but surround the bean canes with corrugated plastic roofing sheets to protect against cold winds and it will protect against a touch of frost but not a hard one. I always back up with some bean seeds planted mid may just in case. Obviously some people either very lucky, very foolish or much warmer climate than me. I remember a frost on 8th June one year I think it was 1991. Wiped out a crop of early spuds that were close to being ready!
  4. I had the education and aptitude to be accepted as a pilot in the RAF. Unfortunately I failed the officer training course and left the air force. I had been working on a farm since starting as a schoolboy and spent every spare minute there. After a short while I decided I wanted no more education and got a fulltime job on a farm in 1978. I love the physical side of the work and was very fit. it was nothing to handle 1000 bales of hay twice, onto and off the trailers, or 1000 bags of spuds 3 times, onto a trailer, stacked after weighing and then onto a wagon. I never complained about the work being too hard but did sometimes that the money was poor. I stuck with farm work until finding more money and similar life working for myself looking after 25 private gardens. I then landed the job as headgroundsman at a 4 star hotel with their own deerpark. I did ok for myself and can honestly say I enjoyed my work so much it never felt like a chore. I guess I was the exception that proves the rule!
  5. Did you just sow on the surface or incorporate into the top half inch. My advice would always be the latter and then roll.
  6. I worked on farms most of my life before my accident ( for those that do not know I broke my back in RTA ). I was headgroundsman at a hotel with 100 acres at the time. I was very lucky as my boss told me there were no desk jobs for me so I would have to learn how to work from a wheelchair. I worked there for another 8 years. I have no gripes about the rates of pay for farm work. I worked hard, saved a little each week. Grew veg in my garden, went shooting for meat. I was made redundant 3 times and has a serious accident but was never out of work or claimed any benefits except for DLA. I got married last year and live mortgage free in a farm house with 1/4 acre garden. I guess I must be very lucky in life. ps retired now at 62 but still love my veg garden
  7. Some areas in our deerpark looked like it had been rotavated once the rooks found them!
  8. Very little! Arb waste is hard work. I have access to a wood pile and give the owner some beer tokens when I see him. We are both happy with the arrangement!
  9. people have forgotten the difference between punishment and deterrent. Because the punishment was harsh it was sufficient deterrent to mean it was very rarely dished out!
  10. We had tantalised posts for a deer park in 2004. Some needed replacing after 5 years, more still a few years ago and 70+ last year
  11. I have a 12v winch in the barn somewhere. Been meaning to fit it to my trailer for a while. I was thinking more about something that would hoist it whilst I am doing a gralloch. I have just loots at the David Stretton hoist and that looks fab
  12. I am getting too old for pulling these large reds around. I can get help most days but not today. Farmer loaded red hind into the trailer for me but gralloching from the wheelchair is getting harder. All done before 7pm and shower. Anyone use a hoist from the tow ball? Any other advice?
  13. It is endemic now. I worked at a very smart 4 star hotel as their headgroundsman (100acres of grounds for me and my apprentice ). The electric gates allowed just enough time whilst they opened for the people in the cars to dump anything and everything onto the drive. We could often fill a bin bag on our daily litter pick!
  14. Good luck I would be interested to see how you get on!
  15. I would not want to put this through a chipper
  16. Which end of the National Forest are you. I have a small wood in Yoxall
  17. I had an HW80 at 21.6 ft/lb. I gave up with it as the spring recoil made it impossible to keep the scope still. The full length scope mount with a roll pin recessed into the barrel sheared the roll pin with less than 50 shots!
  18. I have had some success by threading some shoots of hazel through the holes in a plastic plant pot and filling with soil. A year later I cut off below the pots. Good roots!
  19. I use a Titan 7 tonne vertical splitter. So long as you know where to put the wedge it copes with most stuff
  20. I got some ice on the swelling straight away. A lump was coming up quickly but the ice brought it back down again. Cut in my forehead is taped up and nothing worse. Didn't stop me getting a days work in the garden
  21. Actually it was a bit of dry leylandii and a 4way wedge
  22. I have been splitting logs for years and know where to put the wedge. never had the front of a log fly off like this one did An inch lower and it might have been a different story. My eyes would have been at risk.
  23. Splitting logs today with 7ton vertical splitter when the front of the log (nearest to me) popped off like an explosion and caught me full in the face. Nose and forehead wacked and forehead split and bleeding. Looks worse than it feels now thank goodness. No more log splitting until I get full face visor. )

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