General Garden Maintenance

After a few weeks of rain it’s finally been dry for the last few days, and we’ve been trying to make the most of it. The sun was out today so the afternoon was spent outside having a general tidy up. There seems to be an incredible amount of small fallen branches around the property which all need picking up and we removed bricks and old logs from the temporary fire-pit we setup for bonfire night. We also had to re-cover one of the vegetable patches. No matter how many bricks we place on the fabric the wind (or animals?) always seem to move them. Maybe we need some hooks to keep them in place?

The previous owner ran water pipes to a lot of places around the land. Today we found another buried hose and tap near their old bonfire site. The availability of fresh water all around the land will be an absolute godsend in the warmer weather. The bonfire area needs a lot of clearing and is a kind of dead space at the moment but that’s a job for anther day!

There’s a growing list of gardening equipment we need to pick-up. A new wheelbarrow is high on the list. Our current one was kindly left by the previous owners and while it’s been useful, it’s very old, and very heavy. The weight of the wheelbarrow makes it a chore to use, and one of us usually has to pull it like a mule, rather than being able to easily push it.

We also need a chainsaw/hedge trimmer and might look to go on a domestic chainsaw course in the spring. Turns out you can’t just buy a chainsaw on the internet… We’ve been looking at STIHL as a brand for all our tools, they have good reviews and they do a professional electric range, this is important as eventually we want to charge these tools via solar power.

Having the right tools makes such a difference when tackling the jobs in the garden and we are learning a lot of valuable lessons along the way.