Dry day at last

Garden, post-tidying

Compost heap, rotted down quite well

Refilled

A nice, sunny day today, and the neighbours have given me a key to their shed, so I can borrow their mower. I borrowed their mower, and eventually worked out how to start it. Once running, it made short work of the long grass, even the lumpy bits. Sadly it also made short work of a frog who I didn't spot and who didn't get out of the way in time.

I sheared the grass round the edges of the beds, and a lot of nettles and fumitory which was growing between the fence and the long row of beds at the bottom of the garden. The clippings have filled the compost heap to overflowing, even though it had sunk about two feet since I last filled it up (three weeks ago). I'm pleased that it is composting so fast - it must be hot composting, although I haven't got a thermometer to check it. Mild weather and lots of rain is probably just right for fast rotting.

Quite a few weeds went into the heap as well - I hand-weeded the carrots, onions and leeks, and I harvested the last of the first batch of radishes, and composted the tops.

Wigwam for runner beans

Wigwam for runner beans

Various salad plants

A couple of days ago I started some runner beans and some more French beans chitting indoors - this is just soaking them and leaving them on damp kitchen roll until they germinate. I will plant the six strongest looking runner beans in pots, then transfer them to the garden. I did a few more French beans because from eight planted in pots a few weeks ago, only three have grown. (I have space for only eight in the garden, but if I'd started 24, they'd no doubt all have sprouted.)

The runner beans will be grown up a wigwam, which I've also just constructed. The ground is quite soft there, so I've tethered it to the fence with wire.

Growth notes: Chives and parsnips have just become visible, and there are a few hollyhocks starting in the front garden. The hollyhocks I planted in the back garden have been swamped with goose grass, couch grass, and other vigorous ground plants, and I may have to cut those back and re-sow, but it isn't a high priority because I can't eat hollyhocks.

With all the recent rain the garden is looking lush, but the lack of sunlight seems to have slowed growth. Except of the goose grass, obviously, which is now forming dense thickets. Apparently it's edible when boiled, but it would have to taste particularly good for me to want to eat the amount I've got.

Leaf blowers = evil

Spring-tine rake. Low-tech and effective.

This is a miscellaneous rant, because there's not much to do in the garden at the moment. It's been too frosty recently, and there's now a couple of inches of snow over everything.

So, compare two instruments for sweeping up fallen leaves. The old-fashioned spring-tine rake, and the electric or petrol-driven leaf blower. I believe that the differences in these two tools illustrate many of the serious errors in our society's attitudes towards the environment, sustainability and human labour which are quite likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation.

The technology for making a rake has been around for about 3000 years, when wire was invented. Rows of wires are supported by a simple frame - pieces of metal with holes in them, also very low-tech, and attached to a stick - possibly the lowest technology tool there is. Rakes are simple, easy to produce and use, robust, and effective. Leaf blowers are constructed from dozens of plastic and metal parts, all of which are precision engineered, which has a high environmental cost. They cannot be made using simple metal- and wood-working skills, and all but the simplest repairs will require new parts sourced from the original manufacturer.

The first point of comparison is clearly in the rake's favour in terms of the environmental impact of construction, use, and maintainance.

The second point of comparison is in use - they do similar, but not identical tasks. The aim of each is to move leaves off lawns, but the action of the rake draws leaves towards the user, resulting in a pile which can be easily taken up and put in a wheelbarrow to take to the compost heap, or into sacks for rotting down as leafmold. The leaf blower blows leaves away from the user, and it is less easy, if not impossible, to make a tidy heap of leaves using one. Leaves are transformed into litter, to be whooshed away onto someone else's property, or the public street. By using a conceptually poor tool, a valuable resource is turned into a problem.

Bosch leaf blower. Worse in every respect.

Thirdly, the leaf-blower panders to the dangerous delusion of convenience - the idea that anything that reduces the expenditure of human muscular energy is a good thing, almost irrespective of the cost. In this case, the cost is in far higher environmental impact, and the transformation of a resource into a disposal problem. This is not worth paying for the highly questionable benefit of reducing the gentle exercise involved in raking to mere ambling about holding a gizmo.

Developing leaf blowers was thus a totally misguided project, giving a higher environmental cost, to do a worse job, of less benefit to the user and the land so managed.

Tree felling

 

Before...

...and after.

There were two sycamore trees, about 25' and 30' tall, at the bottom of the garden. They weren't blocking the light too badly, but they grow fast and would have become a problem. I decided to cut them down, and managed to fell them just where I wanted them. If they had fallen too far to the left, they could have damaged the blackcurrant or the peas, and too far to the right would have put them onto the roof of my neighbours' outbuilding. Fortunately it all went to plan - another job done.

By next winter, the trunks should be dry enough to cut up and burn in the fireplace, so they're free fuel as well. This year I'm using old, dry boughs from the much bigger sycamores visible at the very end of the garden. They are covered in ivy, and I've cut most of the ivy stems at the bottom of the trunk so that the plants die and the leaves fall off, to give more early morning light to the garden. Unfortunately, while cutting the thickest ivy stem, I broke the bow saw I'd borrowed from a neighbour. I'll have to replace the blade, and it means I didn't get to finish the job, which has slightly taken the shine off today.

Update: Tony was great about the broken blade, he just replaced it and lent me the saw again. I finished off the ivy and (very carefully!) cut up more dry boughs for fire-logs.