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This is only a 2 handled fork called a broad fork over here.
Sometime ago a forum member started a thread “Has anyone used a broad Fork?”
If anyone is interested this item can be bought from Dave and Val Taylor of Blackberry Lane Tools in Devon.
Can’t see much use for one myself on a no dig plotHi Julie
It’s me again.
Certainly slugs do not like salt but be aware that salt is the ultimate weed/plant killer and stays in the soil for a long time
RichardDuring the early post WW2 period up to about 1957 we lived with my grandmother in what was then very rural Devon. Sanitation solutions were provided by a large galvanised bucket beneath a wooden plank with a large hole in it. The bucket and plank were located in a windowless ( sometimes door less ) shed. The bucket was always given a generous dollop of Jeyes Fluid before the contents were buried in a deep trench in the garden.
This treatment, my Gran always assured me, killed anything harmful. The trench area was left fallow for a year and then early Autumn the surface area was drenched with a Jeyes Fluid solution ( 1 desert spoon to 1 gall water per sq. yard) ready for planting next spring.
We always seemed to have pest free vegetables and wonderful soil and didn’t die of anything.
This info is for historical interest only as the EU have banned the use of Jeyes for any purpose except as a patio cleaner unless you live in the USA where use as a sterilant is still allowed.
But seriously I don’t think I wish to use a coal tar product where my veg will grow!All onions grown from sets bought from Auchan hypermarket near Dunkirk are infected and will be dug out when time permits at the weekend. Strangely, 2 rows of shallots in the same bed look very healthy. Maybe the infection was in the sets. Also a row of module sown Sturon from seed next to the infected row looks ok so far.
In Sept I might just risk the wrath of our EU masters and sterilise the bed. My granny always did it and it never killed her.Sounds like stem and bulb eelworm. Just happened to me !
Dig them all out and dispose off site. Don’t grow alliums in that bed for several years.Hi Julie
The main reason for the greenhouse choice was that it gives 100% light transmission which stops seedlings going
“leggy”. Twin glazed polycarbonate and the cheaper range of of green coloured poly tunnels don’t appear to have 100% light.
Another consideration was possible vandalism on the allotment site. Polycarbonate is virtually indestructible.
I agree that £300+ is not really cheap. There were many second hand ,even free, houses and tunnels on eBay , preloved and such web sites. However all had “buyer to dismantle and collect” as a condition and always seemed to be 300 miles away
I decided to bite the bullet and spend the money.Two easily handled packages arrived at the front door .Easily got to the site in car and on roof rack and being new had a guarantee.
I am considering sealing the glazing panels to the frame but it seems a fiddly job and would need a lot of sealer. I don’t think the noise would be much reduced as most of the noise appears to be produced by the panels flexing rather than rattling in the frame.
Good LuckHello Julie
I bought a single glazed low cost ( £329 ! ) polycarbonate greenhouse for the allotment. A Palram 10 x 6 silver harmony from B&Q..
You need at least 2 people to erect it ( one needs to be about 6ft 4 inches tall to safely reach the top bits) . It’s a total
######## ! to erect especially if it windy. I have yet to make the door fit properly. However it is solid and does the job and it was cheap
BUT !!!!!!!!!!
The noise ! Every panel cracks like thunder even in the slightest breeze 24 hours a day. That ok on the allotment site but in a garden near the house and neighbours??.
You have been warned!
Richard BamburyAround Christmas/New Year perennial kale supply seemed to be woeful. It was a question of buying from France in French or waiting until someone had a few spare cuttings.
I found Pennard Plants in January and ordered on line. They obviously had a good stock and a few days later 2 Daubenton Kale plants fell through the letter box.
I popped them straight into a bed of old horse manure and they are now both about 2 feet tall,very bushy and looking very healthy.
Obviously Pennard Plants is the place to buy perennial kale!Sourcing horse manure should not be a problem. For stables and equestrian centres manure is regarded as industrial waste and horses produce more “by product ” than the stables can get rid of. Most heaps will be several years old so you can choose your year, from freshly steaming to a quiet dark vintage!
Straw based manure is better than a wood shavings base.
If you are collecting yourself then it is free Any stable that tries to charge you is having a laugh.
One stable I know advertises ” Collect your own 50p a bag” ! Never known anybody to take up their offer
One item that does make life easy is having a proper manure fork. Ask your stable where to buy one. Be aware that there are different forks straw and wood shavings.
I bought myself a smallish car trailer for Christmas and in 2 hours I can fetch a load,( about third of a tonne) and barrow it onto the plot and spread it.
Good Luck and keep shovelling!Shan’t be buying any more figs in Greenwich market!
I got 2 kale plants from Pennard Plants in Somerset
Looked a bit feeble on arrival but now doing well in old horse manure.
Dung digging I suppose!Yes, if it has wheels Belgians do it fast. That’s why Flanders produces such great racing cyclists.
Have you visited Brugge/ Bruges? Most exquisite city with the only Michaelangelo Madonna and Child in Carrara marble outside Italy.
A real Middle Ages city . Beautiful canals The Venice of the North. Stay in Novotel in Katalijnestratt. Has paying underground car park and is 10 mins walk from centre and is next door to Onzelievevroukerk where the Madonna statue is
Richard BamburyHi Red Sky
Chillingtontoolsonline .co.uk
Sorry
They have changed their URL from when I bought my hoes
Richard BamburyI knew s smallholder who did that once. Instead of the expected crop he got a field of tomato plants.
Remember that cows and horses don’t eat tomatoes!Thank you Charles for your comments. Times past were interesting . I remember that horse power on the next door farm was provided by a couple of pairs of shires. The plough, harrow and seeders were all horse drawn. Harvesting was done by a horse drawn reaper/binder which tied the corn into sheaves which the women and children would gather into “stooks” . These were later loaded on to horse wagon and off to the “Dutch barn” . I still remember threshing machines being pulled onto the barnyard by a traction engine and the harvested corn being bagged up. When Tractors arrived ( Strange orange painted Allis-Chalmers macihines with narrow front wheels, the original grey Ferguson which was ajoy to drive and the Fordson Major which was a pig) the horses didn’t last long . The arrival of the Combine Harvester and mechanical baler was the end of them.
Nights oil has always been used in the soil and urine collected for some processes eg cloth making
I found you can still get my grandmothers original rounding up hoe .Now called a trenching hoe from chillingtontoolsonline.co.uk
I have one and most people on my allotment site now have them!