First attempt with the lawn mower

It makes me sad to think how easy it is to kill bramble. Even the most vigorous plants seem to have succumbed. The amazing thing is it has only taken four sessions of lopping and strimming to decimate massive plants with tip rooting one inch diameter canes. I learnt a long time ago to try not to be too sentimental about killing weeds. (Weed: plant in the wrong place.) The pacifist in me really would like them to be able to just get on with their lives and carry on growing where they are. What have they done to hurt me? The contradiction is that I want to plant the garden with what I want to grow, and past experience tells me that wild bramble really is hard to keep under control. There are plenty of thickets in the wild where I can forage for the fruit, so it all had to go.

Today I went to the plot with the lawn mower. It was a trial run that worked well on most of the area. The mower cut down even further the weeds that had been strimmed 10 days ago. It also picked up some of the debris left behind last visit. The mix of green and brown should compost well and I have started on the composting. I reckon that the clippings will be more use under a fruit tree than feeding the weeds they came from.

Mostly when I garden I try not to do too much digging to protect the soil structure. In this case I would like to get on with clearing some of the roots but can’t get a spade or fork into the ground to make this achievable. The dry summer has made it easy to keep on top of the growth but baked the ground very hard. Once it really rains I will be able to dig, but the growth will be back with a vengeance.

I have lists for everything else in my life so I may as well do one for this too. Number one on the list: Start a list of things to do in the garden. There since last time is: Learn how to prune and train the thornless bramble! I chopped off about twelve feet of growth today. I can’t really call it pruning but I do have to be able to get in there, one branch had arched over the gate. It did feed me another handful of fruit.

I also got a handful of nettle stings. New growth on stinging nettles is really ferocious!

To keep costs down, the plants for this plot will have to come mostly from divisions and cuttings from the garden at home, and seeds sown. I will have to buy some plants if I am to realise my ambitions for the plot but aim to keep this to a minimum. I expect that any cost will be more than covered by any crop value. (Not that I expect to sell crops – just reduced costs in money and food miles; and increase food quality.) First plants to make the move are house leeks. They are to cover a low block wall that has been there since I first imagined the overgrown plot as a garden. That was several years ago.

Experimenting is in my genes. I would be bored without. The houseleeks are experiment two (experiment one was the mower on uneven ground). They have begun to grow like weeds at home so I have planted some in old used potting compost in the side of a T-shirt. I put knots in the four corners of the back of an old cotton t-shirt to hold up the sides. This ‘planter’ has been sitting on a table top for three or four weeks now and the plants have so far survived. The t-shirt is fading and I expect it to hold together just long enough for the plants to take hold of the soil and be stable enough to grip the concrete blocks underneath. As with all experiments I will have to wait for the results.

P.S. I’m getting the hang of this blogging now and I think it will work as a record of the plot, now to the list making.