The Systems Administrator has got the old lawn tractor running again. We had problems last summer with it stuttering and struggling to go uphill, apparently due to fuel starvation, and at some point in the autumn it stopped running at all and spent the winter sitting outside the greenhouse on deflated tyres. I wondered whether it would ever work again or if I was going to have a dead lawnmower next to the dahlia bed for several years until we worked out how to get rid of it, while the SA promised periodically to look at it once it got a little warmer for working outside.
The tractor's cutting deck gave up the ghost several years ago, and its battery would no longer hold a charge so that it had to be jump started each time using a portable jump starter, but it was useful for towing the trailer around the garden to collect prunings, and I've missed it while it's been out of action. Fixing it entailed removing a lot of gunk from the carburettor, unjamming a little ball thing that is supposed to regulate the flow of fuel and had got stuck, fabricating a new gasket because the previous one had perished and the machine is so old that the SA couldn't find any gaskets to fit, changing the spark plug courtesy of Halfords, re-inflating the tyres which go down overnight, and buying a new jump starter because the old one was knackered. The new one came with a small compressor built in, which will be handy as the SA can fix the tyres with the tractor out in the garden instead of having to limp back to the workshop on flats.
I was impressed by the DIY gasket. It was made out of multiple layers of adhesive paper, cut to shape with a laser cutter and stuck together. It may not last very long, but as the SA said there was no point in buying the materials to try and make a better one before the tractor was up and running, in case there turned out to be some other fault as well as the fuel system, one that the SA couldn't cure. All that remains is to try and find a copy of the workshop manual online, so that the SA can mug up on what the fuel flow ought to be. Still, the machine ran, making it to the meadow and towing back a trailer full of bramble stems and twigs that's been sitting by the pond for weeks. I had just about managed to drag the trailer by hand a few times, with the SA pushing at the back on the return journey, but it is much, much easier with a machine. And beats multiple trips on foot carrying armfuls of bramble stems. So next week we should be able to make a clean sweep of the remaining debris in the meadow.
Meanwhile I have almost got to the end of the neolithic barrow compost heap. The vegetable beds really didn't need any more compost, so I spread some of it around the base of the hornbeam hedge. It is not a happy hedge, not as bushy as it should be, and twigs keep dying back, and as it is on horrible thin starving sand I thought that some nice organic material around its roots plus a dose of fish, blood and bone might cheer it up. Plus it is close to the compost heap, and I didn't fancy barrowing the compost to the other end of the garden. And I couldn't think what else to do with the compost. It's full of weed seeds so I don't want to put it on the borders. Around the base of the hedge I can give it a stir with the hoe.
The episode of the neolithic compost barrow illustrates one of the things I have learned about gardening since living here, which is that compost is really important. Unless you have the tiniest of tiny gardens and absolutely don't have space for a compost bin, then learn to make your own and work out how you are going to get rid of anything pernicious or weedy that can't be safely composted at home. Homemade compost is gold dust, but it is better when it is weed free. The temporary demise of the tractor illustrates another of the things I have learned, which is to get kit appropriate for the size of your garden, be it a pocket handkerchief or rolling acres. I wasted much time in the early years messing around with wheelbarrows, buckets and a small tipping trailer, before we grasped that for this amount of space we needed a proper four wheeled trailer towed behind a tractor. I have felt the lack of it for the past few months, and am thrilled that the SA has managed to fix it.
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