Extreme Rose Pruning!!!

Safety in the garden -Especially with step ladders

 

Gardening injuries

Gardens can be a place of pleasure, relaxation and exercise. They can also be a dangerous place. In Ireland and the UK there are over 100,000 people attending accident and emergency hospitals every year with gardening related injuries.
According to research done by the BBC, the lawnmower tops the list of the most dangerous pieces of equipment, with 7,500 lawnmower related accidents reported each year. Surprisingly the innocent looking flowerpot is the second most dangerous tool, causing 6,300 accidents, with falls, cuts and lifting injuries some of the most common types of accident recorded.

Here are some reasons why accidents happen in the garden:
• Ignorance of potential risks.
• A lack of planning and preparation.
• Taking shortcuts and not preparing areas before starting work.
• A lack of skill or training to ensure that the job is done safely.
• Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

DIY shops are full of mechanical equipment to make you life easier in the garden. There have been recent reports of counterfeit goods being sold on the internet which look like the real at discounted prices. They are mainly chainsaws and power tools and could be potentially lethal as the safety cut off switches and low grade casings could be accidents waiting to happen. Always buy off reputable dealers.


How to make the garden a safer place
You can help to avoid accidents by following some simple guidelines:

• Empty paddling pools after children have finished playing in them.
• Learn which plants are poisonous and ensure children and pets stay away from them.
• Avoid trip hazards such as loose paving slabs, hosepipes left unravelled or uneven surfaces.
• Use surfaces that provide a good grip underfoot, especially on decking.
• Avoid the garden if possible when conditions are icy and slippery, again, especially decking.
• Do not leave sharp tools lying around. Lock them away from children.
• Wear safety equipment - such as goggles, hard hats, gloves and steel toe capped boots - when using machinery and tuck in loose items of clothing.
• Never leave a barbecue unattended and make sure the flames are extinguished before going to bed.
• If you are in the least bit unsure about the safety of tackling a job, call in professionals.
• Electrical equipment should have surge protectors RCD (residual current device) and never be used in wet weather.
• Lock away chemicals such as weedkillers and insecticides. Just because they have the words 'organic' or 'bio' on them, does not make them safe to touch.
• Design a garden so that it reduces the need for high maintenance and lifting.

Using a step ladder

Apart from the obvious reason of being covered in paint, the main superstition for not walking under a ladder stems from the days of public hangings, the only time they would see a ladder is when the body was being removed. We still need to be wary of stepladders, here are a few reasons why:
One of the biggest dangers with a stepladder is when you work sideways. Putting pressure on a screwdriver or a bow saw is enough to push the ladder over and you with it. Face the work directly and preferably have someone holding the base of the ladder at all times.
Don't overstretch yourself. Ensure the ladder gives you enough height for the job. Teetering on the last rung of the ladder isn’t a good idea.
Never leave tools on the platform at the top of the ladder. These become very dangerous if the ladder is knocked at ground level as the tools can come crashing down, and not all of us wear hard hats in the garden.
Ensure the ladder is in good condition and the rungs are structurally sound and not damaged, rusty or dented. Having a rung missing can be a disaster.

More brief tips:
• Is a ladder the best tool for the job? In many cases, a scissors or aerial lift is a safer option.
• Do not paint wooden ladders.
• Keep ladders at least ten feet away from power lines.
• Stand in the center to avoid tipping.
• Do not carry objects when moving up or down.
• Never move a ladder with someone on it.
• Lower an extension ladder before moving it.
• Never leave unsecured ladder unattended.
• Always secure a ladder by tying it down or having someone hold it.
• Keep areas around ladders clear.
• Do not tie ladders together unless made for that purpose.
• If possible, use a personal fall protection system attached to a secure point when working from a ladder.
• Check the ladder has rubber feet to prevent it slipping and place them on a flat hard surface.
• Make sure the ladder's feet are on solid, even ground and the angle isn’t too steep.
• Keep the steps clean and dry.
• Keep one hand firmly on the ladder when working.
• Do not leave prunings on the rungs of the ladder. They could become slippery and create a trip hazard.

Personal safety equipment

Always make sure that you are wearing the correct Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to avoid a serious injury when working in the garden. This is particularly important when operating machinery such as mowers, strimmers, chainsaws and hedge-trimmers. PPE can include steel-toe caped boots, goggles, ear-defenders, gloves and hard hats. Always consult an expert if you are unsure what you should be wearing for a job.

Where’s my Fruit?

I’ve just come back from a rather fruitless journey up the garden. I had gone to take a photo of my blackcurrant bushes to show you an image of them bursting with ripe fruit. Julie’s mum Hilda has some bushes that are just a shimmering hew of dark purple, so heavily laidened that you can’t even see the branches. Mine on the other hand show no sign of fruiting at all this year. There are no tell tale signs of birds feasting on the sweet fruit or anything laying on the ground half eaten by slugs either, we just didn’t get any.

Poppy Fields

Hilda’s fruit harvest is looking very promising this year with apples and strawberries also doing well. The only crop that’s not producing this year for her is the raspberries. Generally Hilda will be boiling up her rich pickings by the gallon in her jam making cauldron. This season though There’s hardly enough to fill the lid, and Hilda has resorted to collecting them on a daily basis and building up her supply until there is enough ripe fruit to warrant turning the gas on. I’m not sure what the reasons for this are but it might be something to do with the fact that her vegetable garden is overrun by large poppies. These are of sentimental value to Hilda and so she won’t let anyone pull them out and they have self set seed freely over the few years they have been planted. You’ll soon be able to see the poppies on Google Maps, which could spark an international opium poppy growing alert. They do look pretty though.

Codylines – Here to Stay

I notice that the cordylines have started to grow back. For those who waited patiently for the growing season, their reward is a new tropical looking plant growing in their garden. The Cordyline will be a bush more than a tree now as it will be multi stemmed. Not everyone’s happy though. I put the issue out onto the gardening forum and people are split about their loyalties to this New Zealand plant. Putting to one side the fact that this plant has been used for centuries for fibre, sweetening food, treating skin injuries and food, especially the carrot like rhizomes, some people just don’t like it because they think they are messy and invasive. However you feel about them, they haven’t gone away and they are coming back with a vengeance!

Courgette catch up

We’ve started to harvest the peas and mange tout this week. They started off badly but have picked up not and producing well. Our runner beans are very slow to establish, but there’s time yet. We don’t seem to be having much luck with the courgettes though. It might be a bit late in the season for them to catch up now and produce the bumper crops were have been used to over the years. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the soil. We are managing to produce the most enormous dock leaves we have ever seen. You could hide under them in the rain or use them as sails on small boats. They will come in useful as an antidote to the nettle stings we generally get when we are weeding, they are doing well too.

Jury’s Out
Julie has just pointed out that the shrub I have been looking at to get the blackcurrants from is actually a ribes, which is an ornamental current bush. Now I might be getting a bit forgetful at times (or choose not to remember in the first place) but I know I have collected loads of blackcurrants off this shrub in the past year. I an adamant and so is Julie so the jury is out. I’m back out into the garden to do a leaf comparison.

Checklist

Having your cake

There are certain comments people make in all innocence when you are young, and not so young, that have a marked influence on your lives. Off the top of my head I can think of two that stunted my already fragile development.
One time when I was straight out of school and working, a colleague of mine told me that he thought I didn’t have the “face for selling.” Just what that is supposed to mean I just don’t know, but it did put me off any type of selling in my job and private life. It’s a bit like being told that you have a great looking face for the radio. I realise now that there’s no such thing as a face for selling. If you believe in a product and don’t spit your dinner over someone when you talk, there’s a pretty good chance that you could sell anything.
Years before that in the days when I would get really excited when the iced cream van tootled down the street, I was at a family wedding and the cake was being handed around on a silver platter. It had been carefully cut into manageable slabs for people to pick up and attempt to get into their mouths in between swilling the beer and dancing rather badly to 70’s disco music.

I was offered the plate and without taking too much interest or notice, I picked a piece of cake and put it on my plate next to the left over chicken bones.

“Ooooh!” Exclaimed one of my inebriated second cousins. “Look at old greedy guts there”. I was totally at a loss. “Ian’s taken the biggest piece on the plate. Someone had to do it but trust it to be him.” My distant relation laughed proudly telling everyone in the whole room to watch their plates because I was doing the rounds. I was totally confused as all of the pieces looked the same to me.

Now if I’m given a choice of something that’s been divided up, such as a pizza (and someone’s looking) I’ll take a medium sized bit. Of course , if no-one’s looking I’ll take the biggest (and as I generally have the job of cutting them up I can also manipulate the slice so it has the most pepperoni on it).

Choosing Plants

When it comes to choosing plants, unlike pizza or wedding cake, it’s not always the largest size of plant or the one with the most flowers that are the best ones to choose. If you are buying bedding plants for the second time this year (due to the first ones being killed off by the cold winds) then picking the ones with buds instead of full flowering specimens makes more sense and you will get more enjoyment out of them staying in bloom for longer. Don’t assume that the bigger plants are always better. Many times the smaller specimens may be healthier and can transition into your garden without suffering from transplant shock.

So what to look for when choosing your plants. 

• How fast does this plant grow?
• It might look good now, but what will it look like in a month’s time?
• What am I looking for?
• How much time do I want to spend in the garden?
• What about garden safety -are they poisonous to children or pets or really spiky?
• How much sun/shade will the plants need and can I provide it in my garden?
• Does the plant look pest and disease free?
• Do the roots come out from under the pot? If so this is a sign that the roots are bound and overcrowded. If the roots are really matted, the plant could suffer.
• Will the plants survive after I buy it? Look for strong stems and healthy leaves.
• Do I really need another plant?
As your experience grows you will be able to assess what plants you really need and their quality without too much effort.

Just an afterthought about what I said earlier. I still get excited when the iced cream van tootles down the road.