it seemed *such* a good idea at the time…
we went into the forrest today! First time for far too long really and it was oh so good to ba away from the noise and distractions and stuffiness and all the rest of it and out in the open again. We were there all afternoon and covered a fair bit of ground which seems to have reduced the ricocheting round significantly (no surprise there really!) We got back in time for Shaun the Sheep and then Duke was home and, as it was such a good day, he launched right into the garden. So I helped him… 2 hours later I had succedded in evicting several large bucketloads of horsetail roots and turning over a 2 foot by 4 foot patch of what passes for soil in our garden. At that rate it will be ready when the runner beans are (just!!) and I will have either toned up or crippled myself. Just now the second outcome feels decidedly more likely… creak, graon, moan!
The plan is to turn over the soil to a single fork depth all over the runner bean patch and take out as much horsetail from it as possible and break up the clay at the same time. Then we have all the stuff out of the compost bins and all the spent grow bag that has been in the square beds for 2 years now and needs replacing and everything out of the pots that the runners were in last year - all of that lot is going over where I will have turned over to make a big raised bed (only raised by a little but hopefully enough) for this year’s runners as pots last year were a mistake. During the season I’ll burn off any bits of horsetail that peep up to keep it all under control as far as I can. Come the end of the season the whole lot will get turned over again and I’ll remove another load of horsetail…. repeat for the next 10 years and I should have horsetail free, good soil!
In teh mean time… my gluteus maximus is a maximus pain in the a****, my thighs are throroughly knackered and my calves are crampy… other than that I’m fine!
