Wednesday 7 November 2012

Welcome To The Jungle (My Veg Plot).

 That's a picture of the overgrown dung heap.  I should have covered it up, shouldn't I?  The 3 lazy tools having a rest are my trusty long handle 4 prong pike.  Very good for mucking out and for fighting during the English civil war.  In the middle is my trusty Celtic shovel.  It's also called a Devon shovel in hmm, Devon.  I bet you would never have guessed that would you?  The lad on the right is my trusty Azada.  They come from Spain originally.  Mine's called the 'Crocodile'.  They are like the proverbial off a shovel, when it comes to clearing vegetation.  They are brilliant, but they need real ale or a good breakfast to make them work - you're the engine!
 That's a picture of my Azada after doing some clearing work.  It seems to be having a rest, doesn't it?
 Brand new compost heap in front of my Swedes.  Notice the Nettles growing amongst them?
 A photograph of the dreaded 'Twitch' or Couch grass.  If you use farmyard manure, you will always find twitch.  Rotavators make a fantastic job of dividing it into thousands of little plants.
 Yours truly holding up a Swede for one's 'Tea' or Dinner if you're posh!
Ruby and Sooty eating the Swede leaves.

20 comments:

  1. Bet you were hungry after all that hard graft, Dave?

    The Azada looks like a useful tool, and if it's saving your back, well that's obviously a good thing.

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  2. Hi Pat, yeah it certainly gives you an appetite. The cattle and the veg plot keep me really busy during the Winter time. I looked at the steak in ginger on your blog (Pat Papertown 2). It looks incredible value and I be it is delicious? You wouldn't get anything in England or Ireland for that price.

    The Azada is a great tool for clearing grass and vegetation. I am starting to have one part 'no dig' and one part 'dig'. Just to compare how both plots grow. No dig gardening is a lot easier but it doesn't kill off all those nasty creepy crawlies like meal worms, chafer grubs and wireworm.

    Been reading in one of my old gardening books that the reason why they used to leave the soil roughly dug over, was to expose the nasties to the birds. I always thought it was for the frost to break down the soil and make it friable and let some air in.

    Think most people who tend veg plots have physical problems - especially bad backs. Are you still doing exercises for your bad back Pat?

    Thanks!

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  3. Why is the azada so effective, Dave? Is it more effective than your other tools?

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  4. It works like a pick-axe or a mattock Pat. It just skims off vegetation like grass, without you removing the soil.

    I believe in places like Africa they use similar tools to tend to crops. Often several people in a line, cultivating fields with out the aid of oil powered machinery. So I suppose they are good ecological and carbon neutral piece of weeding equipment.

    Would you never think of getting an allotment Pat, or do you just not have the time?

    Thanks.

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  5. Don't have the time, Dave, life is so fast. I sometimes do a bit of digging at my wife's parents' place in Szczebreszyn, eastern Poland.

    The azada sounds am incredible tool. Why don't you start advertising and selling them over the internet?

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  6. It's great to hear that you help dig over the veg plot at your in wife's parents' place, Pat.

    For all my rants and complaints of having a none existent social life, no public transport, jobs and rubbish weather... Don't think I could live any where I didn't have farm animals and a vegetable plot to see to. I do envy your life style though, meeting people, going to rock concerts and dining in great restaurants...

    I bought the Azada from an English man in Galway who advertises on the Internet. Chillington tools in England make them. I think they are brilliant. They are also excellent for ridging potato rows.

    Thanks.

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  7. Even living in a big city, you can retreat into solipsism, Dave.

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  8. Yes Pat. The doctrine that only the self exists. Thank God for rock music, literature, writing and blogs to communicate...?

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  9. In PC Western 'societies', communication has been destroyed through people being frightened to death of expressing opinions that may go against the now imposed PC orthodoxy. Thus, things like music and pre-PC Literature may be two of the last bastions of meaningful (e.g. opinion-filled) communication.

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  10. How long before pre-PC Englishliterature is banned Pat? Why do you never hear the PC orthodoxy standing up for the great English writers who gave the world classics like Thomas Hardy and his masterpiece: Jude the Obscure?

    Great points Pat!

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  11. I'm only stating the obvious here, Dave, but when the PC mob enter the world of Literature they only want to scour the personal backgrounds, not the products, of the writers so that they can claim that the writers' aesthetic products are just the result of having had the privileged status of being (usually) white heterosexual males.

    Of course, for the PC mob, the enchantment (aesthetic emotion) and sense of universal emotion that readers often get from reading Dickens; Hardy; DH Lawrence etc. is only an 'illusion' or a 'privileged white male construct'. For the PC crew, any sense of human empathy and enjoyment has to be scrutinised for gender, racial and social issues. Of course, writers like Dickens, Hardy and DH Lawrence transcend such crude PC constructs of measuring reality.

    Thank God, I don't live in Britain, Dave, the way football has been hijacked by PC recently is diabolical e.g. the current witch hunt of that poor referee.

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  12. You're the academic Pat. Thankfully I don't have to be told what to think or interpret when I pick up a book. People like DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy never came from privileged backgrounds did they? That's what makes there writing so compelling. They lived amongst the underprivileged and made their characters from poor backgrounds into tragic heroes.

    Do you think they would get published if they lived in England, today Pat? Or would they have to have a PC agenda?

    I agree with you about the poor referee.

    On a lighter note. When are they going to prosecute football fans for calling people fat at football matches? Perhaps they will introduce:

    "Fatism?"

    It's crazy.

    Thanks.

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  13. Good points, Dave, but the whole thing revolves around the PC assumption/stereotype that all white heterosexual (Christian) males are in some way privileged. Of course, reality is way too complicated to fit into this crass, narrow, simplistic worldview.

    Well, if the PC crew are going to have categories of 'hate crime' like 'racism' and 'sexism', why not have things like 'overweightism' ('fatism' may be considered non-PC terminology); 'red-hairism' or 'shortism'

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  14. Can they also have categories of 'regional racism, ban the Scottish 'Flower of Scotland' being played and make football 'none competitive? Of course I am joking and realise that it's all a farce. Where do you stop Pat?

    Did you see the England 'A' match farce yesterday when the powers that be wouldn't allow the England player (think it was Prior) to leave the pitch even though he was suffering from an upset stomach?

    Thanks.

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Onion Set Planting.

I still managed to plant up two of the new planters/raised beds with onion sets in the rain yesterday. Notice the white root sock in the com...