@GWRS, yes I know you can hire machines but I couldn't manage the machine! Besides hard work is good for you! Works off the calories and keeps me fit. Next year I've told OH just to mow it, it will be far easier.
Hadn't thought of burning the hay, I've got an incinerator but we do have neighbours, so might have to choose my moment. Thanks for that.
I spent an hour or more on my hands and knees cutting the ''orchard' long grass with lawn shears - jolly hard work and not recommended if you suffer from hay fever like me!. it's area about 3 m x 5 m.
I'll try the strimmer tomorrow now it's shorter.
I did this once with my small wildflower area @Lizzie27. I used shears rather than the petrol strimmer, to avoid the seeds getting flung onto mown grass and into borders. I never repeated it! I now have a cordless trimmer as well as the petrol strimmer and I used that this year. Slower than the petrol, but lighter, quieter and it didn't throw the material as far. Some friends of mine did give some 'hay' to horse owners but the more 'flowery' the hay became each year the less the horses wanted to eat it, so they stopped doing that. Disposing of the hay from wildflower areas is an issue for other friends too. Some add it fortnightly to the council green waste collection but it can take weeks, months even, and can become a soggy problem here in Cumbria. When I cut my larger wildflower area I do it when I know it will dry quickly then I burn it and put the ash on my compost area. It's a clean, quick fire if the material is dry. This year was wonderful but as we had rain not long before I cut it there was no need for concern about burning. Not possible in many parts this year though.
Pulled 1500g of Carrots, now blanched and in freezer. 10lb of apples picked, prepared and frozen. Plus pulled three bags of frozen whole tomatoes and made them into soup/sauce base ( needed the room in the freezer😆) enough for 7 two portions box containers.🥵
Do you think that's because of the heat and lack of rain @GWRS , mine is in a raised bed in the garden so easy to keep watered, plus I put the closhe on it in March to help warm the soil early.
Collected some more erigeron seeds and sowed them into patio gaps in my front garden. Potted on some cowslips for next year. Then spent almost all of the rest of Sunday lugging watering cans around the garden to deeply water anything that was still hanging on (no hosepipes now!)
I was surprised to see last week that up in London 60 miles away the parks have already greened up again. No such luck here (pic of my main lawn below, taken yesterday, not mowed in 3 months!). Fingers crossed for some proper rain this week..
Posts
Hadn't thought of burning the hay, I've got an incinerator but we do have neighbours, so might have to choose my moment. Thanks for that.
I never repeated it!
I now have a cordless trimmer as well as the petrol strimmer and I used that this year. Slower than the petrol, but lighter, quieter and it didn't throw the material as far.
Some friends of mine did give some 'hay' to horse owners but the more 'flowery' the hay became each year the less the horses wanted to eat it, so they stopped doing that.
Disposing of the hay from wildflower areas is an issue for other friends too. Some add it fortnightly to the council green waste collection but it can take weeks, months even, and can become a soggy problem here in Cumbria.
When I cut my larger wildflower area I do it when I know it will dry quickly then I burn it and put the ash on my compost area. It's a clean, quick fire if the material is dry. This year was wonderful but as we had rain not long before I cut it there was no need for concern about burning. Not possible in many parts this year though.
I was surprised to see last week that up in London 60 miles away the parks have already greened up again. No such luck here (pic of my main lawn below, taken yesterday, not mowed in 3 months!). Fingers crossed for some proper rain this week..