It was a beautiful warm, still, sunny day. I keep finding more signs that spring is approaching. In the so-called Italian garden in the turning circle, a group of purple dwarf iris have suddenly burst into bloom. The last time I looked there were just the snouts of new buds emerging through the gravel. Now there's an entire bunch of flowers, and another clump nearby not far behind. In the back garden one witch hazel is fully out. It is the mid-orange flowered variety Hamamelis x intermedia 'Orange Peel', and I sniffed the spicy fragrance on the air before I saw it. The scent of witch hazel is a curious thing. I seem to notice it more in wafts in passing than when I stick my nose right up against the flowers.
I hurried along and pruned the vines around the veg patch. This is a task I meant to do before Christmas, or at least between Christmas and the New Year, as vines bleed badly once the sap is rising, and you are advised to finish pruning early. I don't know why I didn't do it then, except that I was engrossed in other things and maybe the vine is not top of my list of concerns. Due to errors and omissions in my record keeping process, I don't know what variety it is. The grapes are white, and I'm sure I meant to choose one that was capable of setting edible fruit out of doors, since I never had any ambitions to make my own wine. A couple of years ago I tried hard to do things by the book, and pruned it at the correct times, and thinned the bunches of grapes ruthlessly, and the fruits were still small and extremely pippy, though the chickens liked them. The main job of the vine is really to clothe the wire rabbit fence that runs round the veg patch, and provide the odd leaf for cooking. I quite like stuffed vine leaves, and it gives a smug feeling to be able to use home grown fresh leaves, instead of tinned.
I cut a couple of branches experimentally, and sap didn't gush forth, so I got on with it, since it was one of those jobs where the situation was only going to get worse the longer I left it. It still didn't seem to be bleeding by the time I'd more or less finished, so with luck the sap is not rising that much yet, and it won't. Maybe it will start later. I'm not an expert on the cultivation of vines. It makes a vast amount of growth each year, throwing out new shoots that are 3-4m long and longer. Normally I keep trimming these through the summer to try and keep the whole thing in check, but the veg patch was mostly fallow last season, as I tried to catch up with everything else.
Another job that should have been done last autumn, ideally in September, was to scrantle* the meadow. We did the back garden in the middle of that month, but never got on to the meadow. I'm not sure why. I think the Systems Administrator, who basically dislikes trudging up and down for hours pushing a power scythe and then having to collect large amounts of grass, hoped that it could get by without a cut every year. I'm not crazy on the task either, and dislike repeatedly asking anyone to do anything, in case it could be construed as nagging, so we ended up with a communications failure, and it didn't get done. We ended up scrantling the meadow this afternoon, as it has daffodils planted in it and I was beginning to worry that if we didn't do it soon their leaves would be through. My part of the job is to rake the fallen grass aside, to clear the way for the next passage of the scythe. I didn't check the exact time we started, but it must have taken us about an hour and a half, during which I raked continuously. That should have burned off a couple of mince pies. We'll leave it for a day or two in the hopes that it might dry out in the wind, and the SA will put the lawn tractor over it, and I'll have to rake it again. We now have two trailer loads of weedy and rank grass to dispose of. I'm hoping that they'll burn, chucked on a lively bonfire a forkful at a time.
*We borrowed this useful agricultural term from Stella Gibbons to describe the act of cutting long grass with a power scythe, since there isn't a verb specifically for that. The exact nature of the original operation remains a mystery.
Addendum I have done my bit to sabotage an on-line poll in the Guardian, while telling the exact truth. It goes to show how misleading statistics can be. The question was, will you be spending less in the sales this January than last, to which my response was No. However, that doesn't have any positive implications for my confidence or spending power this year. It's simply that since I spent nothing in the sales in 2011, I certainly wasn't going to spend less in 2012. When I took part, with an hour to go until the poll closed, 80% of respondents had answered Yes. I'm sure you shouldn't tell people how other people have voted on the same question if you want an accurate result, in case it influences what at least some of them say.
Showing posts with label scrantler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scrantler. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Wednesday, 14 September 2011
scrantling
We scrantled two acres today. Well, not two acres, but the daffodil lawn and the long grass in the lower part of the garden. It hadn't been cut since last winter, and was ceasing to be a thing of beauty, and approaching that dangerous stage where, if we keep getting rain, we can't cut it because it is wet, and then the grass all falls over and it really is impossible to cut at all. The first half of September is the time to do it. We visited Great Dixter on this day, nine years ago, and their meadows were all cut down.
The scrantler is a petrol driven power scythe. The Systems Administrator bought it at Chelsea some years back. We had parted company for an hour or so as we usually do, each to look at their favourite bits at their own pace (the floral marquee in my case) and when we met the S.A. said 'I've bought you a present' and I had visions of a stainless steel water feature. In fact it was the power scythe, which turned out to be much more useful. Before we had it we cut the long grass either by smashing into it with the lawn tractor on its highest setting, which caused the engine and gears to whine horribly and can't have done it any good at all, or else I walked up and down swinging a heavy duty strimmer. That was punishingly hard on the back and I am definitely too old and stiff for that sort of caper nowadays.
The power scythe was soon christened the scrantler, in homage to Stella Gibbons' peerless book (thought the film version with Kate Beckinsale before Hollywood ate her, and a young and ridiculously handsome Rufus Sewell was pretty good as well). We both make references to Cold Comfort Farm, with cries of What about the spring onion harvest, that be man's work, when there is some heavy duty task to be done, clettering dishes, and I did, F. Poste as a rejoinder to a repeated question. Sometimes I feel like Aunt Ada Doom, with my enthusiasm for looking at the church of any village I visit (Wymondham,see 24th March; Clavering, see 12th August), and anything by a journalist with an unlikely name is likely to remind me of Flora's conclusion that Mr Mybug must be a genius, otherwise he would have changed his name by deed poll.
The scrantler chops down the long grass in a slightly ragged fashion, but the cuttings can go on the bonfire heap, and once the surface of the lawn is exposed to the sun and wind and dries out some more, the S.A. will be able to go over it with the conventional mower. My job is to rake up the fallen grass and help load it into the trailer. An awful lot comes off, but it hasn't been cut all year. We always disturb some toads in the course of this exercise, ranging in size from tinies smaller than my thumb to big fat ones. Fortunately they seem to be able to duck down below the height of the cutter blades, though it must be terrifying for them as the machine goes overhead. Most of them instinctively make for the nearest edge of the lawn, and I always wonder how they do that, though one small one today was heading back towards the middle. We pick them up carefully and put them in a border before they can be scrantled, or raked up.
My remaining task is to cut the sloping side of the daffodil lawn by hand, as it is too steep for the machine, and to cut the tufts on it, as there isn't room to get the lawn tractor in and it is very uneven due to the huge number of anthills. I expect the woodpeckers will deal with some of those soon enough. There is quite a lot of work still to do,but the key thing is that the weather-critical part for which I need the Systems Administrator to muck in, as I can't even start the scrantler, is safely done. A good afternoon's work.
The scrantler is a petrol driven power scythe. The Systems Administrator bought it at Chelsea some years back. We had parted company for an hour or so as we usually do, each to look at their favourite bits at their own pace (the floral marquee in my case) and when we met the S.A. said 'I've bought you a present' and I had visions of a stainless steel water feature. In fact it was the power scythe, which turned out to be much more useful. Before we had it we cut the long grass either by smashing into it with the lawn tractor on its highest setting, which caused the engine and gears to whine horribly and can't have done it any good at all, or else I walked up and down swinging a heavy duty strimmer. That was punishingly hard on the back and I am definitely too old and stiff for that sort of caper nowadays.
The power scythe was soon christened the scrantler, in homage to Stella Gibbons' peerless book (thought the film version with Kate Beckinsale before Hollywood ate her, and a young and ridiculously handsome Rufus Sewell was pretty good as well). We both make references to Cold Comfort Farm, with cries of What about the spring onion harvest, that be man's work, when there is some heavy duty task to be done, clettering dishes, and I did, F. Poste as a rejoinder to a repeated question. Sometimes I feel like Aunt Ada Doom, with my enthusiasm for looking at the church of any village I visit (Wymondham,see 24th March; Clavering, see 12th August), and anything by a journalist with an unlikely name is likely to remind me of Flora's conclusion that Mr Mybug must be a genius, otherwise he would have changed his name by deed poll.
The scrantler chops down the long grass in a slightly ragged fashion, but the cuttings can go on the bonfire heap, and once the surface of the lawn is exposed to the sun and wind and dries out some more, the S.A. will be able to go over it with the conventional mower. My job is to rake up the fallen grass and help load it into the trailer. An awful lot comes off, but it hasn't been cut all year. We always disturb some toads in the course of this exercise, ranging in size from tinies smaller than my thumb to big fat ones. Fortunately they seem to be able to duck down below the height of the cutter blades, though it must be terrifying for them as the machine goes overhead. Most of them instinctively make for the nearest edge of the lawn, and I always wonder how they do that, though one small one today was heading back towards the middle. We pick them up carefully and put them in a border before they can be scrantled, or raked up.
My remaining task is to cut the sloping side of the daffodil lawn by hand, as it is too steep for the machine, and to cut the tufts on it, as there isn't room to get the lawn tractor in and it is very uneven due to the huge number of anthills. I expect the woodpeckers will deal with some of those soon enough. There is quite a lot of work still to do,but the key thing is that the weather-critical part for which I need the Systems Administrator to muck in, as I can't even start the scrantler, is safely done. A good afternoon's work.
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