Peasgood

Jeyes fluid and winter wash tar oil are pretty much the same thing and both frowned upon these days. Either will burn any vegetation it contacts and best done in winter if you are determined to do it at all.

Having looked at the pic properly I'd say it needs a good pruning and is still suffering from the effects of woolly aphid.

Best time is after the leaves have fallen off the tree. I guess strictly speaking as it is dead it makes no difference but I'd still do it in winter rather than now.

I don't think there is anything available these days that is worth painting on the cut, not sure there ever was tbh. Mercury based stuff did work well when cutting out disease but for obvious reasons that is long gone.

My tractor, brothers wagon. Both been in the family for a long time, tractor since new. Wagon went elsewhere for a while but is back again.

My field too, Granpa first bought it about 1968 and these pair will have been in this foeld together a fair few times in the past but this will be the first in this century and quite possibly the first time in 50 years.

My interpretation of the numbers I saw were that Reform made massive gains but almost entirely at the expense of the Conservatives.

Labour didn't appear to lose much which surprised me given how shite they have been. Was this because people don't share my opinions of them or because they cancelled the elections in the areas they thought they would lose? They may not have cancelled but I read they had.

TBH I try not to take too much notice because it saddens me to see how utterly shite the whole lot of them are and that it seems to just be a great big scam to line their own pockets while doing feck all of any use.

I put a 20" bar on mine to fell some big Leylandii earlier this year, worked a treat.

Did wonder if it might be a bit low powered but it wasn't in the slightest, I was very impressed in fact. Might not be the same story on hardwood but it wasn't like it was borderline ok with the leylands, it was very good.

Copy and paste of exactly what I used, bought from Sam Turner.

Husqvarna X-Force Pro Laminated Bar 0.325" 1.5mm - 20" 

Husqvarna X-Cut S35G Semi Chisel .325" 1.5 mm Saw Chain - 80DL / 20"

Run mine off an IH 674 which is probably small rather than medium sized in todays terms.

My flail is actually a 280, so is bigger than the one in that particular link. 

I've abused it to feck and it takes it all, I bought it mostly to pulverise the prunings in my orchards. Claimed to be able to cope with 6" and I'd say it does but if you want it completely gone it might take more than one pass.

1 hour ago, daveatdave said:

this is what you want it's not cheap but works 

Kurtail Evo | Mares Tail Horsetail Herbicide & Weed Killer

WWW.PROGREEN.CO.UK

---

The trusted brand for marestail and horsetail control  Available in 0.5 L, 1 L & 5 L - options below Need advice? The ProGreen Team has years of extensive knowledge on mare's tail / horse...

 

You won't end up with a riverside meadow if you use that though, it kills everything and is very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects.

Besides all that it is basically a mix of glyphosate and 2,4-D so not fit for purpose from the start. I don't know of any chemical that will get rid of marestail long term and certainly none that don't kill everything else at the same time. Weedazol used to be very good but did get everything, lasted a year and was very expensive. (Banned/withdrawn now anyway)

As said, changing the conditions or mechanical/grazing activities are best and if it is a riverside meadow you are going to get it anyway.

I would suggest a free round of golf would be a perfectly reasonable offer.

I'd go with blossom wilt too but I have no answer beyond that.

My own observations suggest to me the collapse of the insect population is closely following the collapse of the small scale family livestock farms.

1 hour ago, peds said:

Hey. Hey. I want you to take that negative attitude, plant it in the ground, and grow some helpful suggestions with it instead. 

I have an extremely helpful suggestion, use a single piece of plastic to skin the tunnel.

I have been doing the plastic on commercial size tunnels all my life, I know a bit about them. Anything other than a single piece will not work, it is a waste of time and money and will look a complete bollocks within no time at all.

I think the most we put up in one year was 5 acres, have nothing like that now and just my own tunnel that is 18 x 64 feet. I do that one on my own usually although my son did help last time as I wasn't up to it at the time.

One of the most important parts of the job is stretching the plastic lengthways, that is the first bit you do. How you are going to do that is a mystery.

@AHPPI know you say you have already bought the plastic etc and I understand you feel there is no turning back but you really do need to rethink.

12 hours ago, AHPP said:

Next thing to work out is how to overlap/join the plastic somewhere. It's coming in smaller sections.

Best of luck but I am expecting it to be nothing other than a complete disaster.

6 hours ago, AHPP said:

Reskinning the poly tunnel next week. Full plastic or netting to waist height? Probably potting bench with seeds starting in trays along one side and tomatoes growing the other. 

Mine is netting to waist height and I often wish it was full plastic

38 minutes ago, Stubby said:

What ever happened to that guy who was the " Ivy Police " ?

Shown the door I think.

OK, I pinky promise.

Stihl 2 N 1 Easy File

Only me that uses it so not worried about it. Very complicated (to me) how the setup works because you can have the table at 3 heights. Very well thought out by the designers and made so you cannot easily bypass the safety features. 
Well that was until this daft farmer came along with some water pipe and zip ties. 😀

Works a treat. 

That's a Buzz dual cab pickup btw

I found pear splits quite readily, especially if you are using it for knife scales and after spending a lot of time of effort carving and shaping etc you think the brass pin could do with just one more very light tap.

1 hour ago, Haironyourchest said:

 

Aye, this one was against the clock though, rush hour was approaching. Or so the rumor goes..

Since when has that bothered them?

Knowing the road, if it was rush hour the traffic would be mostly going the other way on the very seperate part of the dual carriageway. That's assuming it was pm rush hour rather than am but they never seem bothered in the slightest about such things anyway.

1 minute ago, AHPP said:

 

Something I've been thinking about lately is the proper order in which things should fail to be safest/most useful. Just something to have in mind when you've got a chain of heavy steel bits with pingy strap bits in between.

It is definitely not a spectator sport and it would certainly introduce a whole new set of potential disasters with all those folk on site.

I do pull things with chains, steel ropes and a big ships rope I have but not when there are any spectators in range. A difficult thing to organise with this situation as I expect there was nobody there in overall control. I also expect each person there assumed the other people there were competent at their particular job and therefore less likely to step in. ie. the tractor driver probably never even noticed where any of the climbers anchor points were, just as the climber wouldn't be checking the pins on the tractor should they have been used.

8 hours ago, spuddog0507 said:

The big blue jobby is well man enough for the job,, 

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

2 hours ago, MattyF said:

So knowing the area I’m curious if you could have got a tractor and forestry winch in the woods either the side of the rootball or side it was hung up in ? 

Not my area of expertise at all so can't give anything other than a non professional opinion.

Do I think you could have safely got the tree down without climbing, yes I do.

I don't think the issue was entirely a climb/not climb thing. If he hadn't tied himself to the bit he cut off events would be very different and there would be a tiktok video with lots of views for a completely different reason.

Top and tail of it is he completely ****************ed up and is now sadly paying a very high price.