Gardening

Lawrie9 · Post by **Lawrie9** » 15 Jun 2008, 3:42pm

Well I've been gardening all day today. Mowed lawn with push lawn mower. Superb resistance training for upper and lower body to enable you to cycle up those steep hills. Also dug out six fertilizer bags of weeds which I've deposited in recycling skip. Gardening is a bit like cycling in that it teaches one the art of patience in that you don't create a nice garden overnight and likewise with cycling we won't improve without a lot of hard work.
Thanks for you responses to my Free Range Eggs thread. Seen another at £1.20 doz and you just leave the money in a tin and help yourself.
Anyway get yourselves a push lawnmower and see your fitness improve.
Loads on ebay or your car boot. Ransomes are like the Cinelli or Mercian of the push lawnmower world. I've got a Qualcast panther with a roller which is about 50 years, cost me a fiver and cuts brilliantly. It is important to have the height and bottom blade adjusted right.
If you haven't got a garden there are allotments and numerous conservation and voluntary schemes where you can get fit in the open air.
I'm off, more gardening to do and will hopefully fit in a 20 mile ride before day is out.

diapason · Post by **diapason** » 15 Jun 2008, 5:40pm

I also use a push mower - an old Atco with a split roller. I can cut the lawn in less time than it takes to sort out the flex of the old electric Flymo

N

Post by **Mick F** » 15 Jun 2008, 9:56pm

THAT'S where I'm going wrong!

We, no sorry, I, have a Mountfield Rotary and a Stiga Multiclip. I'm not expending enough energy. 80 miles on the bike isn't enough. I need a push lawnmower. I'll get rid of the chainsaw too.

Manx Cat · Post by **Manx Cat** » 15 Jun 2008, 10:25pm

I have the best mowing machines known to man kind.

You can eat them!

SHEEP!

Where we live we have the mountain flocks roaming free. I cannot grow anything except nettles, it seems sheep dont like them.

Anything else is munched very readily though. I only needed to cut my grass just once last year.

:lol:

Mary

eileithyia · Post by **eileithyia** » 15 Jun 2008, 10:39pm

With my shoulder have resorted to buying a new lightweight flymo for this year, really could not face pushing my old, heavy electric one around, so will def be giving the old push one a miss thanks.

Anyone got any tips for getting rid of sycamore seedlings, have wonderful tree in my garden but the seedlings drive me wild every spring and spend several hours pulling them up. and why is it they germinate sofast and appear within 24 hours!!!!!

Manx Cat · Post by **Manx Cat** » 15 Jun 2008, 10:44pm

why is it they germinate sofast and appear within 24 hours!!!!!

Ah, they must be best friends with the daisies!

Mary

eileithyia · Post by **eileithyia** » 16 Jun 2008, 7:52am

...and the dandelions that egress from the neighbour's abandoned garden.

Post by **Mick F** » 16 Jun 2008, 8:00am

Thistles, bracken, nettles. Then there's all the ash seedlings. Don't have much problem with sycamore - awful weed-trees - thank goodness!

Marim · Post by **Marim** » 16 Jun 2008, 6:00pm

Weeds?....... Beer cans, fag packets, half eaten chip suppers.... at least you don't have to dig them out, but it's not a pleasant gardening job!!! I sound like Victor Meldrew...... Just jealous because I don't live in the Tamar Valley!!

eileithyia · Post by **eileithyia** » 16 Jun 2008, 7:50pm

...and I've cleared a tin of de-icer out mine earlier this year, that isn't the local kids who sit on the wall, but a neighbour who parks alongside and decided to jettison it!

Post by **Mick F** » 16 Jun 2008, 9:53pm

Marim wrote:Just jealous because I don't live in the Tamar Valley!!

View of the Valley towards us.

When we moved in this place, we dug out the garden. (That's our wood over on the top-right)
We had difficulty finding where the garden was!

We actually found:
iron beadsteads,
a rusty moped
chicken wire wrapped around tree stumps
rusted out oil drums
a mattress
broken and smashed greenhouse

nettles
bracken
massively thick brambles, as thick as your fingers
sycamore

We had fun.
Now we have this:

yoyo · Post by **yoyo** » 16 Jun 2008, 11:16pm

diapason wrote:I also use a push mower -
N

From one diapason user to another that is what is called gardening by tracker action! Whilst I enjoy this method of organ playing I have to admit to hauling a heavy petrol mower around the garden.

Dee Jay · Post by **Dee Jay** » 17 Jun 2008, 10:25am

Mick F wrote:
Marim wrote:Just jealous because I don't live in the Tamar Valley!!

View of the Valley towards us.

When we moved in this place, we dug out the garden. (That's our wood over on the top-right)
We had difficulty finding where the garden was!

We actually found:
iron beadsteads,
a rusty moped
chicken wire wrapped around tree stumps
rusted out oil drums
a mattress
broken and smashed greenhouse

nettles
bracken
massively thick brambles, as thick as your fingers
sycamore

We had fun.
Now we have this:

Mick, hi.

Lovely pictures; thank you for posting.

We lived in SE Cornwall for 10 years - probably not so terribly far from you - and had such a similar experience when we cleared our 2 acres.

2 cars
1 caravan

Several bits of bicycles

Ditto ancient garden equipment

Ancient buckets of creosote

The - seemingly - entire local telephone exhange wiring - equally ancient, if not more so!

Washing machines, tumble-dryers, dishwashers, tellys, video recorders - various, several

Guinness draft pumps - several

11 knives

Lots of wire, including that ghastly razor-wire.

Old bullet cartridges (is that the right terminolgy? My knowledge of armoury/weaponry is not so good!)

Victorian bottles - about 2 dozen including a number of those blue ridged poison bottles

Lots of old crockery, bits of ceramics, old iron-mongery, broken glass, nails. (We did have one trip to hospital with a nail through a foot. Not nice.)

And the brambles! (I made over 100 pots of jam with the blackberries before cutting them down!) With roots so thick I broke two garden forks!

And ivy and nettles and sycamores!

I held several 'kids 'n' gardening' days: about 10 adults and 15 children would come round for the day on Sundays and help to clear the garden. And I would make an enormous pot of soup or pasta and great big slabs of banana cake for lunch.

Then we had the diggerman come 'round and he said that he would be there for about 1 week ..... 7 weeks later, he left!

We could kind of see that we had some fruit trees, but what we found was a small, but lovely orchard with 4 apple trees and 2 pear trees! Cue much preserving! We also uncovered another pond!

At at the end of that summer we invited everybody round for a cava-fuelled BBQ in the garden and it all seemed worth it!

lauriematt · Post by **lauriematt** » 17 Jun 2008, 11:24am

lovely pics MICK F!

ps chance of a top speed down that hill??? :lol:

Post by **Mick F** » 17 Jun 2008, 12:34pm

Try it with a lawnmower!