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The weather is improving and yesterday I gave my petrol hedge trimmer it's first work out of the year.
That's a photo of yours truly going around the perimeter of a field cutting back any vegetation that may be touching the mains fencer wires.
I wore my safety glasses but couldn't find my ear protection muffs. So I had to listen the unsweetened dulcet tones of a petrol engine.
There's a lot to be said for a battery hedge trimmer. We endure so much rock and roll (garden) noise pollution don't we just? Recognise the ACDC record title?
I noticed the rushes are rampant this year more than ever. I see rushes in most farmers fields emerging. Even in some Dairy farms where they hammer the pasture with fertilizer ("bag manure"), lime and slurry.
I am an organic gardener/smallholder and don't like using weedkillers. So I will have to start up the petrol (more noise) strimmer and cut down the soft rushes.
All being well it will be turn out time this weekend for the livestock. They will run and dance and have their Spring disco and I will have the task of mucking out their Winter quarters.
There will be plenty of fym for the veg plot next year.
There's always something to keep me busy here.
That's a task I don't envy you doing, but turning your animals out and having all that fresh manure to rot down for use later is brilliant. I have never minded the sound of people working in their gardens, I even am happy to hear people enjoying their outside spaces, BBQ ect, just like them to finish at a decent time and not stay loud into the early hours.
ReplyDeleteHi Marlene. If you make a big pile of fym and cover it with a sheet of black plastic. You will have well rotten black gold for free. I am starting to question why people have big lawns when they could use it for plant borders and vegetables instead. I look forward to sitting outside having a barbecue, drinking a few beers and having a chat.
ReplyDeleteI have a hot-bin composter and 2 black bins for leaf-mulch, no room for other composting. I would gladly give up the lawn space, but hubby love his lawn. I try to be as organic as I can, my nasty habit is slug pellets, everything else is working on it's own eco system.
DeleteI have been an organic gardener for the last 25 years Marlene. We dose the livestock and buy ordinary pig ration and pony and rabbit and poultry food. We can't afford organic ration for them.
ReplyDeleteYou've got a lot of hard work in front of you. But what a reward. Nice smelly fertiliser. What do you do with the cut rushes?
ReplyDeleteHi Linda. We have no shortage of fym. I could bag some up and give it to someone who grows veg. I don't do anything with the rushes. If there is grass amongst it the pigs and ponies will graze them. I think only Saint Brigid could find a use for soft rushes when she made a cross with them. You don't see rushes in Portugal. Do you have them in Poros?
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could do a side hustle in rush matting (mediaeval style) - eco floor covering.
ReplyDeleteOr rush lights? I have seen Canadian Prog Rock band Rush twice.
ReplyDeleteSo which annoys you more? The sound of your wife hoovering or the gas powered hedge trimmer?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the Hoover Debby. It takes me back to my dad hoovering the house on Saturday mornings when I had been out drinking the night before.
DeleteThe picture only allows a partial view of your bottom Dave. Personally, I am pleased about that but I am sure that there are other blog visitors who would like see the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteThere use to be a photo of me on Google images holding my leeks in 2012 YP.
DeleteI'd like to see photos of the "Spring Disco". Mucking out is hard work but so satisfying when you get huge piles of fym and nice clean beds for the animals to come back to.
ReplyDelete"Schools Out" by Alice Cooper should be played at the animals turn out River. Pigs seem to love muck. It's all good stuff for the veggies.
ReplyDelete