Kitchen Garden Forum

Burn the cow poo, yes, of course.

Those nettle roots that are easy to spot are so prolific in my beds that burning would be the only solution. Hopefully, the final solution.

I don't have a days work in me these days though I usually manage four to six hours of pottering about, some days are better than others. My biggest problem is walking about, just being verticle affects everything below my neck so I'm in bed at six every day. Then I get up at six and start some sort of work by eight.

Our dog gives me more work, we don't have carpet, just rugs over oak boards. Dog fur in all the corners so I have to vacuum every day. Recently I do what they do on hospital wards, I go around with one of those flat dusty things on the end of a pole then vacuumed the dusty thing. I think the vacuum blows the fur and dust further.

Right now if I had the money I would pay for help though keeping active has to be good for me, after three roof repairs and some garden work yesterday I felt good. On those days I achieve nothing I feel like a looser.

That burner assembly is saving me a lot of bending over pulling weeds out of the driveway that amounts to half a footbal pitch in area. Spraying was never a solution, not only because of the expense.

Windy weather will be with us shortly and more roof repairs, with a strong southerly the slates vibrate and occasionally one breaks over the nail holes. Hanging slate on hooks rather than nailing through is still not accepted this far west yet it is the solution for high wind load areas.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google for 'Slate hooks'.

Hi Ya, I had a big problem with some weeds that came from who knows where last season. I have a paraffin burner that I bought a few years ago but have not been using. I am considering reusing it as I am loath to use weed killers. I believe you should only run over weeds with the flame lightly to distort the leaves but I get carried away and frazzle them. I also got the impression it will burn weed seeds in the soil but how long you hold it over I am not sure. Funny thing as O got the instructions to use it off this site a few years back. How thing go around. Happy burning

I did a test on a raised bed by heavy burning with light burning on another bed. The heavily burnt bed is just starting to produce a few weeds whereas the lightly burnt one produced weeds quickly. Worms have returned quickly in both cases. When dealing with deep rooted perennials I found that just burning the tops doesn't get rid of the root. I still need to test how long to burn those deep rooted weeds. They do die if you can lift them by turning the soil as you burn.