CHAINSAW DILEMMA

Photo: Clearing the weeds and soil from crazy paving is time consuming, but it does pay dividends.

GARROTTE A LOT OF WEEDS

I’m taking on a few light duties today. I had started off by burning a drop of fossil fuel earlier in garden machinery, but that has come to an abrupt halt.

My chainsaw hasn’t been use for a while so I decided to get it out of storage, crank it up and tackle some long overdue clearance work. The first job came easily. We have a holly tree that is quickly blocking our view from the house and it had to go. It’s hard wood but didn’t put up too much of a struggle and soon came crashing down.

The spree had begun. I then decided to tackle the overgrown gorse that is trying to march across the lawn. In I went, goggles on, thick safety gloves, padded trousers and a long sleeved jacket over a checked lumberjack shirt (well you have to dress for the part).

What I forgot to do was to protect more vulnerable parts of my body, namely my neck.

GORSE

Gorse is not that difficult to clear, if you can get to the base of the shrub you will find it quite open and the wood is soft and brittle. Everything was going well. I didn’t take into account the brambles though. There I was, in the middle of the wilderness, where no one could hear me scream, when all of a sudden I found myself being garrotted by a very thick, spiky bramble that somehow managed to entwine itself around my jugular. I pulled it off in a panic, not knowing what it was. In doing so I ripped my skin clear off and had visions of being in a scene from a grisly horror film where arteries were severed and blood was spurting everywhere.

I switched the chainsaw off then patted my neck in the hope that blood wasn’t gushing out. It was just a trickle thank goodness, but it was enough for me to realise that these jobs should only be tackled when you are not alone. The chainsaw is back in the shed covered in WD40 so it won’t be in rusty pieces next time I decide to use it, and I have picked up a small hand trowel to clear the weeds from the path running across the lawn. Surely that’s safe enough?

WEEDING

Light duties are fine for me now and I am also rejoicing in the fact that I am still here. When the sun shines I am always tempted to get the machinery out, it’s probably a man thing, but the reality is I am happier with a trowel and a pokey stick. The bloke that cleans the paving outside the Credit Union in town is an inspiration as there isn’t a weed in sight around the building and he does it all by using a length of wood with a nail stuck on the end of it…..who needs anything else?

I try not to use any weed killers on the garden. This is especially important in areas where vegetables are grown. However it means I have to put up with quite a bit of hand weeding, especially the paths and driveway. Bracken is poking its head up through the asphalt and we also have a spot where Japanese Knotweed is surfacing. That stuff can work it’s way through concrete and is nearly impossible to get rid of so all I can do is to keep chopping it back to weaken it. The stems have to be disposed of very carefully as new plants can start growing from just a tiny cutting. The plant has marched across the country, clogging up our waterways, as builders move soil around in trucks without realising they are carrying the roots of the weed. Take a trip down the river near the GAA grounds in Buncrana where the new houses are to see what I mean……

VINEGAR

I tried spraying vinegar on the weeds in the crazy paving a month or two ago. Undiluted it is a very powerful weed killer, well supposedly. It did kill off the moss a bit, but the daisies, dandelions and grasses all seemed to be unaffected. I realised that I was asking the vinegar to do something that it just wasn’t equipped to do. Over the years there has been a build up of wind blown soil and muck that has accumulated into the cracks of the paving, which provides the perfect habitat for weeds to germinate and thrive, it’s natures own seed bed... No amount of vinegar will clear that. What I am doing today is taking out the soil; this will reduce the chances of weed seeds being trapped in the cracks. If they do get their roots into the ground, then it will be more likely that the plants won’t flourish, as nutrients will be few and far between. The plants will be weak, which is when I can attack. This will make the vinegar more effective when I try again and it can start to work on the soft flesh of the new seedlings.