Trailoftears

Fascinating.I'm surprised there's no market that I know of for bracken compost bagged up.The Acid-loving plants dream medium I would imagine.Highly regarded for blueberry cultivation I gather.Back in the days on upland Welsh hill farms they would cut/dry and haul down bracken to litter under the animals all winter.Unlike straw,it cost nowt and there was plenty of it!Politically incorrect now,but the same applied to peat too-trench,cut,stook it to dry,hauled down from the hills and re-dried on the zinc roofs.Would pretty much keep them warm thru the Winter plus they couldn't afford coal in those pre-grant days.Probably the hardest work I've ever done!

Interesting how the fashions in veg come and go,I worked at a Country house Hotel some years ago.So,I tended to grow the slightly more unusual stuff then and thats coming back now I find.Flat parsley,asparagus pea,florence fennel bulbs,sweetcorn,Curly kale etc.The old mainstays are out now it seems-carrots,2nd early spuds,r.beans. Still an argument for growing your own onions I'd argue-bit more intense flavour. My cycle is-leeks and p.sprouting broc/maybe sprouts put in the Autumn.Come the spring they come in,plus a couple of old beds of asparagus/rhubarb come in too.followed by br.beans,grdn.peas,garlic,shallots,onions ect.then the salad crops start to come in-salad bowl lettuce/sw.chard/mizuma/spinach/chives/sp.onions etc,also herbs,coriander/fennel/basils.Then fr.beans/courgettes/sweetcorn/curly kale,followed quickly by red cabbage,globe beetroot.In the G.house,the finest most productive large cherry tomato-Sakura+bloody butcher-an early greek-type tom with a few plum type san marzano cooking toms.Also a cucumber or 2- half size f1 fem types,fembaby/socrates etc.If you have the luxury of a small g.house+2/3 decent sized raised beds its entirely possible to be pretty much self sufficient re: veg for 10 months of the Year.

I recently took out via a bladed bruschcutter a stand of say,3 sq.metres of knotweed immediately nxt to the riverbank on the flat With a view to future spray app..Then I discovered it was growing right down the stony/undercut bank virtually into the water.Dealt with that the best I could (wet feet) fascinating tho to notice that big lumps of rhizome are literally hanging in the air over the water waiting for gravity or a flood/local riverbank collapse to drop lumps into the water and away they go.

Timing is an interesting question.I've always aimed for catching plants on their way up/growing strongly re:application with glyphosate.My theory being- A:the plants are growing strongly and accordingly will absorb/translocate the herbicide more effectively. B:The tissue being attacked is softer/younger and therefore more vulnerable to herb.app (+you need to apply less volume and closer to the ground),which is safer for you and better for the environment.But apparently, regarding J.Knotweed and also bracken-and possibly other 'difficult species' too-brambles? The sweet spot is when they approach the max height/senescence.Which I find really surprising given they are presumably pretty much 'standing still' at that point in their annual growth cycle.I can see that that point would give you max leaf volume to attack,but also much harder to apply effectively given the height and density of a 6'x6' stand of knotweed?Another reason I guess is that you have to consider the insect/bee population should you spray in conjunction with flowers on.

Something I meet more and more,and also due to media scare stories makes most of my customers faint at the very sight of!As much research suggests glyphosate works surprisingly well.I encounter it regularly alongside riverside properties,which figures given its propensity and talent to use railways,canal and rivers as easy highways.I find it surprisingly easy to control at the standard rate of 50:1 re: glyphosate application.Given its glossy/moisture repelling leaf structure,I find it effective to either trample it,or give it a damn good thrashing in a Fawlty Towers style pre application!You could also use a leaf surfactant too I guess-You cant beat thrashing an alien species with a big stick tho-I'm thinking our caring Tory gov here...As to Jap.knotweed and Glyphosate-,it controls it- note the lack of the magic word 'eradicate',apparently,the rhizome structure can if needed,sit tight for 20 odd years!Now thats a robust lifeform.

I agree with a lot of the comments on this post,people DO want to learn,grow their own stuff.I suspect far too many people regard gardening/growing as 'difficult',and some particular talent confined to middle-aged white men with flat caps that belong to arcane societies who signal their membership by furtively exchanging home-grown carrots whilst glancing nervously around lest some members of the general public accidentally spot their furtive machinations! Therefore it puts youngsters/learners off.A huge gap in the sector,market is a t.v.programme actually teaching the BASICS-how and when to sow seed/aftercare/watering PROPERLY/soil prep/planting etc,etc.Instead they get middle-class oxbridge knobs in woolly designer jumpers-with suspiciously long/clean nails exhorting them to install mirrors,paint their sheds pink,go out and buy mature designer plants for huge expense etc,etc.No wonder most peeps think-'ukking fell',these people are seriously strange-gardening is not for the likes of us.

Pertaining to the couple mentioned in my opening post.The gentleman is a v.keen barbequer.last Year he was pulling up my/his half-grown onions and I was finding the golf ball sized bulbs in the compost heaps more often than not.I had a wtf?moment-and asked him why?He thought they were sp.onions-which I also grow for them in the same area....🙄

Thinking back,growing up as a Country boy my/our chief pastimes were bird-nesting- v.politically incorrect I know!But I've ensured my place in Valhalla now by reparations I hope.Also snaring sewin/salmon which went to the chosen few on my Dad's milk round.But my favourite pastime was via a stable of ferrets/purse nets rabbiting!Again,they were sold on to the more discerning customers of my Dads biz.And 2 or 3 young lean rabbits are are damn good eating.I couldnt help smiling to myself at the thought of slapping 3 young rabbits in the fur,thoughtfully gutted by myself on the worktop of my modern 'right-on' customer referred to in my o.p.She would shriek wildly,slam the door in my face-then sack me due to the horror.....😄

Apart from the usual landscaping routine maintenance stuff,I also grow a fair bit of veg/soft fruit for various customers in their own veg patches/raised bed areas etc.One of my female customers decided to take our relative glut of salad crops down to her friends on her days in work.These are salad crops grown organically by myself 15 odd metres from her fr.door-curly kale/salad bowl lettuce/spinach/chard etc,etc.Not content with washing them-it was (apparently) necessary to wash them in hot water!Its like-why?What horrors lurk within?a lone small keel slug?I found it profoundly depressing that even educated people's default position is that veg is 'dirty' and potentially suspect because it doesn't arrive in polystyrene packages shrink-wrapped.A very depressing moment tbh.Does she feel the need to hot water wash the 'piccolo' tomatoes via m&S they eat all Winter which come from god knows where?I v.much doubt it. What a World....

The issues I see with the 'modern' technique of membrane+gravel ornamental stone-or indeed membrane+bark is 1.the stone is generally dredged out from somewhere-estuaries? so filthy and being organic/silty will grow weeds with gusto,and so presumably not hugely environmentally friendly either.As to membrane-when I've been asked to remove it from areas over the Years-when stripped off,the soil beneath is in a truly,truly shocking dead state.The worm population is zero-no opportunity to cast?The soil surface beneath is shiny,polished and undulating,tbh it resembles some sort of lunar land deadscape.

All that being said, I've come to terms with my extra leg now-I fondly call him Sid....

All that being said, I've come to terms with my extra leg now-I fondly call him Sid....

Crazy,when I think back over my career the stuff you used without thinking about it.Looking back when I managed a an old Mansion property re-purposed as a high class Country House Hotel with extensive Rose gardens.My scary chemical of choice was dimethoate-a seriously heavy systemic insecticide than came in a v.impressive metal flask!The logic for using it back in the day with my limited knowledge-?Efficiency plus you didnt have to completely saturate all the total bulk of rose bushes+yourself with shedloads of inneficient 'contact' insectides like pirimic arb/pyrethrum etc.Even more chillingly,back in the days when I 'helped' at shearing/dipping as a young kid in the Elan valley when we dipped a couple of thousand sheep over two days-the very best job as a kid was to be allowed to 'dunk' the sheep as they hurtled endlessly and splashed the fekk out of us all day in a solution of undoubtedly a cocktail of industrial systemic chems!

Interested to hear other forum members opinions on this much vexed subject. Over the Years I've used many different chemicals-paraquat-the liquid hoe-never on veg.areas for me tho.Pathclear-diquat/paraquat and amintrazole (I think),Sodium chlorate-the bomb makers choice. Now for simplicities sake+its biodegradable properties my weapon of choice is glyphosate-generally the generic versions due to monsanto losing their exclusive patent plus them being an evil company.I still get pushback from various customers due to their not unreasonable aversion to any chem.application.However,given many of them have 800 metre hardcore drives+extensive areas/sweeps of huge car-parking areas,I often have to gently point out to them that the days of employing multiple youths on their knees painstakenly manually removing individual weeds at sixpence a month+a bowl of gruel daily are long gone now!Thoughts!?🙄

Funnily enough, being younger and more optimistic than I am now-many years ago!I bought a husky 'pro' mower with an alu deck and ticked a lot of boxes re:pro use.(I can hear the forum members laughter at my stupidity from here).Now that was well weird,the shiny orange underdeck paint flaked off extremely quickly at the least attempt of cleaning.More alarmingly,the underlying surface seemed completely dusty/crumbly and you could just tell instinctively it simply had no long-term future-at all.

Re my last post,the old honda versions-hr194's,need their drive inspected too-the rubber boots should be intact/non-split too.The advantage of the kaaz/sarp mowers seems to be a v.solid hexagonal drive shaft as opposed to the slightly more fragile honda multi splined version,also,the old hr194 engine is surprisingly small given the heavy lump its pushing along-4/4.5 hp?

The kaaz/sarp decks deffo dont degrade as far as I can see,having bought a fair few 2nd hand ones going back to the legendary honda hr194,they occaisonally lose a lower deck edge piece due to stones hitting them repeatedly over years of use which doesnt hugely affect their utility tbh+when I've bought some of these and tidied them up,they are probably 3/4/5th hand and close to 30+years old,so its to be expected really.Generally speaking,all you have to do with these extremely old honda 4 wheel mowers is replace one or 2 cables,possibly fit a new pair of clutch plates,chuck a new generic blade in+the usual service stuff-and even now,they can STILL provide good value!Oh and avoid any that have a welded repair near the deck on the bottom handles.

I agree re: the rear roller models,but have never considered one-more weight and as you rightly point out,all too regular horribly expensive failures.Tbh,unless you are maintaining (preferably) completely level golfing greens,crown ball bowling greens etc, They're a bad buy.I notice most manufacturers recommend you push them to start the self-propulsion process!

I wish,then he could look after me in more ways than one 🌞More likely,he's the usual soulless accountant thats now rotting away in some Southern new town secretly raging internally about the meaningless of his daily commute into the office staffed by nonentities who's only interest and aim in life is to climb over the shoulders of their equally brain-dead colleagues.he's still my Son tho,so I'm prepared to buy him a quality mower.Regular quantities of small chemical packages in return would be a nice gesture of support for his discerning Dad tho 😄

Here's a philosophical point lol! My favourite youngest son has just married his rather delighful girlfriend and they've just taken on a huge mortgage on a big detatched house standing in 3/4 of an acre grounds with an extended lawn.He's21.I want to give them a practical and useful housewarming present that is both durable and will make their ownership of the garden easier over their married life.So,no brainer there-a 21" kubota/lawnflite/danarm pro kaaz/sarp mower equipped with direct drive/mechanical blade/brake clutch/honda gx engine/overspecced heavy alloy deck/fan-assisted grass collection/70l grass bag with dust protection/2 speed drive etc.As long as he does the obvious-yearly oil change, biennial spark plug/air filter change etc-and as I'm his Dad he will DEFFO be doing as I say lol.Not only will he still be tottering out in his late 70's still using and enjoying the same mower, I'd take a wild punt that mower would probably come in useful for his now 20 yr old son!And it cost me what?£1200 in 2023.Sounds expensive,not so much when you would get 50+ years out of it.Any battery alternative out there dare I ask.

No,but I have a bagful of makita 18v batteries built up over the years.As to the stihl battery mowers,I think I would have to go out and spend maybe 2 grand on just the bigger batteries to do a full days mixed mowing of say 9-10 hours.As to a doeable makita mower,the only one I can see that would work for me uses its own large/v.expensive specific battery to just THAT particular mower!Dont recall exactly but its a big lump-possibly designed for your back.As to the stihl battery mowers sq.metre battery range-for myself its pitiful tbh.

I've taken an extremely long hard look at the range of makita battery mowers and also the stihl range.Obviously for daily work they need to be (reasonably) robust/with a decent steel blade between 18-21",and it goes without saying-s.propelled!I simply cannot see anything out there that comes close to my pair of petrol mowers-stihl series 2 20" for bog standard typical suburban 'rectangles' on the flat,plus a kubota 21" kaaz derived mower for steep up and downs/the odd lawns up to tennis court size x 3/bouncing over woodland lawn areas with perched tree roots plus a generous scattering of big pine cones,then come late Autumn,a liberal depth of bullet -like beech mast.Batterywise as far as I can see, there's no credible choices out there yet?

I work for a customer who is somewhat like myself-i.e a gadget boy!the difference being he runs about 3 or 4 successful companies and has no financial constraints at all (swine!).so he has the unlimited opportunity to try many battery systems-mak/Milwaukee/also latterly snapper.Some time ago I tried his new 20v? Milwaukee chainsaw-what a horrible,heavy pig with the old-fashioned electric style transverse motor-I wouldnt touch it with a bargepole tbh! Obviously,being a diplomatic sort of cove+given he gives me loads of work,I tried to murmer vaguely encouraging noises!On the other hand,he also let me loose on his makita 18v telescopic tree lopper which I rather liked tbf,however,I couldn't really justify such an esoteric,rarely used tool for myself-tho God knows I tried.😁 As to my own makita related chainsaw low powered tools I really like the fact that the 18v duc254 and the little makita petrol dcs230T both use the the identical 10" bar+low profile chain.Also I noticed his telescopic mak lopper again used the same cutting parts.So there's good symmetry,cost efficiency in these particular trio of battery tools.Even then,I knew in my heart of hearts,I could neither justify or afford the telescopic pole pruner for occasional use-but I gamely tried to justify it to myself!