peds

LOL! Chortle chortle. Ho ho ho. Titter, titter.

Either, both. The rules are the same. I'd have thought that was implied, depending on whether you have a dog or bitch.

If I were local to you I'd do it for free, but I'd call in a favour if I ever needed some drone footage.

Only responsible thing to do these days, unless you can reasonably claim (between you and the dog) to be able to produce a healthy litter of pups with decent homes arranged to go to before they are even born. Male owners' attachment to their dogs' testicles can sometimes be borderline fetishistic. Unless you are willing to wrap his wee hotdog up in a little condom every time he runs around a corner, the right thing to do is to cut them off. My dog was the only survivor of a litter culled as a result of overpopulation and careless owners not getting their dogs the snip. His mother's keeper threw the rest into the river.

I meant the tree god dance, but thanks anyway.

Could I see a diagram to explain what you mean please.

Where did you get your tickets? Month-long crash course, was it?

Yeah, that was the effect, but the middle section was much bigger. I'm out and about right now, but I'll have a look through some old threads later and see if I can find it.

Well, if nothing else, it'll fill a few minutes of time in the day.

Yes, it delays it significantly. Not for as long as painting it with creosote or engine oil or whatever other shite people like to spread all over the place, but if you are into growing veg with a minimal impact on the environment, "shou sugi ban" is one of the options available to you. Different people claim different results, but there are bits of wood in Japan that have been around for long enough to make the procedure seem worth the effort. Even if it only brings you, say, six or seven years instead of two or three before the boards rot away, I'd say it's worth it. Now, depending on your reasons for wanting raised beds (I needed them to get above the level of farmyard waste and tractor parts) and how you look after the soil in them, by the time the timbers have rotted away the soil might be of a quality and character that you can just take out the timbers, top up the paths with chip, and switch to simple beds, which are even more on trend right now.

Go on then, what's the story with it up until now... who took off the lower branches since we last saw it?

Yo, Singe the soil contact sides with a blowtorch or, if you've got the time and the gas, both sides. Edit: looks bang on trend too.

There was a video on here not long ago of a hung tree being taken down with two complete sets of felling cuts, one about 80cm above the other and facing the opposite direction, with a rope just below the upper cut, tugging in the direction of the lower cut. Give the rope a tug and the two cuts fold, pulling the tree backwards before it completes the forward flop. Maybe someone can remember what thread it was in and find a link. Looked pretty cool.

I would have thought Plecotus auritus myself on account of the aures grandis, but there is a certain resemblance to Inonotus from some angles I suppose.

Found this wee fella on his own, wedged in a nook in a mauldy ould goat willow earlier today. Definitely keeping this tree now.

Yep, but it shouldn't be thrown about the place with such gay abandon that it drives the pH out of the comfortable range for those fruit trees, rendering more nutrients unavailable. Also, adding too much at once to either your compost system or directly to the earth gums it up horribly, and kills a lot of the soil biota. Adding it to a great quantity of woodchip and ignoring it for two years sounds perfect. Mine goes through the chicken coop with woodchip and straw (to discourage parasites), then composted for about 3 months, before going onto the garden.

No, you absolutely don't. Most vegetables don't prefer alkaline soil, the tolerate it, and some better than others. They generally perform best between 6 and 7. Don't be too trigger happy with the ash if you're already around 6.5.

I second this. Put a doughnut shape of brown cardboard (or don't, no big deal) around the stem, and cover with mushroom compost, seaweed, or aged manure, or at the very least aged woodchip or leaf mold. Take care not to pile the mulch up against the stem. Great job, good to see. Best of luck with it.

That's what's good about this forum, lots of different takes on the situation. Thanks all for the advice. The neighbouring fields are owned by a farmer from whom we just bought a narrow strip of land adjacent to our access lane so we can widen it, part of the deal was to replace the hedge and fencing that we removed so we could get the work done. The ramshackle fencing around the property wasn't touched, but it's in need of repair anyway. I'm grateful for the sheep and donkeys that have been on the property for the last few years, they've kept the weeds down, and I'll be letting them stay on it this year too, until we can start building. It might well be his responsibility, but graveyards are full of people who had right of way. We had the digger clear out his ditches whilst on site too, and I've scattered a bit of rye and clover seed on the few bits of land the digger mashed up. No big deal, and we want to stay friends with the neighbour because I'd like to buy a couple of acres from him in a couple of years time. Anyway, I should have mentioned that all the best trees are already studded with wire and staples, so the damage is done. I wouldn't bother putting wire on any of the hawthorn small enough to lay, just the chunky ash and willows. I did a full check of the border today, it's about 30% that needs replacing, the rest just needs tacking up a bit higher, a few new posts and another strand of barbed on top. Photo is an example of dozens of similar.

Long term I'll be laying what I can, gradually removing the goat willow and replacing with something nicer (except for the ones pressed into service as fenceposts), and planting new hedging from cuttings and air layering over the next few years. A quick fence is needed because the neigbouring sheep are returning in a couple of weeks. Not that bothered about the aestheics of it, and I actually quite like the look of a gnarled old hawthorn growing over the wire attached to it. If any of them do come down eventually, the lower bits of stem with shreds of wire in them are destined to be habitat creation rather than firewood. Sure I'll crack on then, thanks for the advice.

The neighbours are moving back in in a few weeks after spending the winter downvalley, so it needs to be sheep and donkey proof by then. I'll definitely be trying to hedge some of it long term, great idea.

...is obviously a pretty bad idea. But what if I really want to? I've got to fence in three sides of my property, which is bordered by mature trees and the next in line, waiting for their turn. Goat willow, ash, alder, hawthorn, a few birch, every two to four metres, with a few bigger gaps. About 200m in total. Obviously I can plug holes with posts, but having just spent another 200m of fenceposts, I'd rather keep costs down. I do have access to a load of hazel sticks. Could someone tell me exactly why I'd be a fecking eejit for considering it. I'm not short of firewood, and I'm happy to cut around the staples anyway if they ever need to come down.

Given the choice, I use fresh as possible for paths, and aged for mulching beds and trees. But it's no big deal, fresh chips turn into aged if you just wait a while, and any nitrogen theft can be mitigated by feeding the soil with nettle tea. Conifer and beech chips are great for mulching fruit bushes, particularly blueberries, to keep the soil acidic.

Three (or more) large rocks, one at each end on one side and a third in the middle on the other side. Won't rot away like driven fenceposts, the right kind of rock looks lovely, and it adds another feature and potential habitat from a biodiversity point of view.

Please see other posts about my aversion to unnecessary burning due to being a smelly hippy. Anyway, I hired in a proper chipper for the day. Still got my pocket chipper on call, but I'd have been there for weeks clearing everything, especially after the excavator dragged my neat rows of lined-up butt ends into a few tall heaps. Money well spent.