Kitchen Garden Forum

Morning almost 5am, Morning OH, morning All

I'm glad i made a big effort and went and cut a large lawn for someone yesterday, early evening, as it's raining very hard out there at the moment. The grass is still growing very quickly.....

Morning Pa Snip...

Hi OH, saw you were there.

Our grass has been too damp to cut for days. Latter part of last week we had a frost, areas of ground were white in small pockets and there was a thin layer of ice on top of one of the compost bin lids.

Today I am off to Windsor Great Parks Savil Gardens tea room to meet a former work colleague.

Wonder if we will get a break in rain so I might visit the gardens whilst there

I think this afternoon is meant to be quite pleasant, so you might have an enjoyable walk of the gardensd, Pa Snip.

Yes, this afternoon was dry so I split up some of my rhubarb and planted the pieces in my new garden. I would prefer to do it in Jan - March but saw Monty Don doing it last Friday so I thought I would do the same. I remember being told to line the holes with wool by an old-timer when I was young so as I had some wool left over from my shearing efforts I have lined half of the plant holes with wool to see if they grow better. Has anyone else done this?

Barney

Evening Barney, i have never heard of the wool lining before, let alone try it....but i hope it works.

Nice to know you're a man of the land again.

Thanks for your kind words. Regarding the wool, I've been searching the web and have found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/leeds/hi/pe ... 403511.stm

So perhaps I should have believed the old-timer and lined all of my holes with wool.

Barney

Cider Boys wrote:
So perhaps I should have believed the old-timer and lined all of my holes with wool.

Barney

Are You Sure !!!!


sorry couldn't resist that howler, you should be used to my sense of humour by now

Very good.

Barney

Ah, so that's where my old woollen sweater disappeared to !
This is certainly a new technique I've never heard of. I wonder how long it tskes the wool to completely rot down?

Mrs Snip purchased some Dalefoot Wool Compost but has yet to use it.
At least two bags of it out in garden and a small bag in greenhouse.

https://www.dalefootcomposts.co.uk/

I'll be convinced only if I see results

Not heard of wool compost before but have heard of people using it for slugs etc. Now I've heard Cider Boy's report that it is good for Rhubarb I just may try it out as always like to employ tried & tested older techniques & I am patiently waiting for some split crowns from my neighbour.

Might as well put my hand up & say I split my old one last winter but think I made too many plants from it & only 2 have thrived, hence why I am looking forward to filling the gaps.

Westi

Many local people use tufts of wool (which sheep lose naturally in the fields, on dry stone walls and wire fences) as lining for their hanging baskets. They claim it stops the compost from running out, helps retain the moisture and, in he long run, adds fertility to the compost.

Not tried it myself - it's too windy here for hanging baskets, they tend to get pulled off the wall!

The use of wool as manure has been around for many a year!



If someone says that something is shoddy they normally mean that it is badly made or of poor quality, or may be referring to bad workmanship. But where did this word come from?

Its origin goes back at least to 1813 and surprisingly refers to a process which would be seen nowadays as a good example of recycling. The recycling of wool.

Shoddy is the name given to an inferior woollen yarn made by shredding scraps of woollen rags into fibres, grinding them and then mixing them with small amounts of new wool. The object was to manufacture a cheap cloth which could be made into products and clothes. It was also known as Rag-Wool. An even finer shredding process produced what was called Mungo.

Shoddy was first made in Batley, Yorkshire, by, it is believed, Benjamin Law, and its production quickly spread to surrounding textile towns in the area.

The collection of the rags for this process started in streets all over Britain by rag dealers or rag and bone men as they became more commonly known. The rags were sorted, and any seams, or parts of the rag not suitable, were left to rot and then sold onto to farmers to manure crops. Or they were used for bedding or stuffing.

The remaining wool rags were then sent to the shoddy mills for processing. For several decades shipments of rags even arrived from continental Europe.

The rags were again sorted before the shredding process. This shredding created a very fine dust, which again, was used for manure on the fields. But the fine dust also caused health problems for many of the shoddy workers who breathed in the fine dust. It was known as 'shoddy fever'.

During the manufacturing process not all of the shoddy could be used as it was too short to spin. This was packed up in bales and sent off to Kent to be used as manure on the hop fields.

After spining the coarse cloth was sold on. In the mid-Victorian period the US and Canada was a large export market for the cloth. One common use of the material was for army uniforms and blankets.

Not so shoddy after all!!