What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

[Arzosah]

... my brother is coming along next week while he's down south, and he's bringing his chain saw brilliant opportunity to start on the weeding so I can grow crops properly next year.

I am now trying to imagine what sort of weeds are so bad they need a chainsaw? Bindweed is a nightmare but I don't think it is chainsaw worthy. But all the best with getting the garden ready to crop. I will be stripping out my summer crops soon and plan to completely redo one section of the garden over the winter. But I have said that for the last 2 years and progress has been very slow. I have less excuse this year though as I now have 7 days a week to work slowly not just the weekend.

The chainsaw is for the cherry laurel, about 20 feet high and 35 feet across, the single buddleia (badly drought affected, but I didn't prune it last year and its bad) and there are a dozen or so hazel trees cropping up all over the place - I let a single hazel tree grow about 5 years ago, and it was very successful, and the local squirrels have buried them all over my garden

I'm only going to let him do an hour - he has less idea than I do about pacing! - and he's 74 years old and not terribly fit. The other stuff, I can do gradually, but the cherry laurel takes forever.

A chainsaw does sound a little extreme for bindweed, you're right

[GillyBee]

... my brother is coming along next week while he's down south, and he's bringing his chain saw brilliant opportunity to start on the weeding so I can grow crops properly next year.

I am now trying to imagine what sort of weeds are so bad they need a chainsaw? Bindweed is a nightmare but I don't think it is chainsaw worthy. But all the best with getting the garden ready to crop. I will be stripping out my summer crops soon and plan to completely redo one section of the garden over the winter. But I have said that for the last 2 years and progress has been very slow. I have less excuse this year though as I now have 7 days a week to work slowly not just the weekend.

The chainsaw is for the cherry laurel, about 20 feet high and 35 feet across, the single buddleia (badly drought affected, but I didn't prune it last year and its bad) and there are a dozen or so hazel trees cropping up all over the place - I let a single hazel tree grow about 5 years ago, and it was very successful, and the local squirrels have buried them all over my garden

I'm only going to let him do an hour - he has less idea than I do about pacing! - and he's 74 years old and not terribly fit. The other stuff, I can do gradually, but the cherry laurel takes forever.

A chainsaw does sound a little extreme for bindweed, you're right

That makes more sense. I rather like the idea of a coppiced hazel to give me home grown pea and bean sticks and the like but I don't have room for one in our smallish garden.
Is your brother a regular chainsaw user? One of the more frightening things I have seen was a new neighbour trying to remove a very large apple tree with no thought at all to the weight and position of the branches he was cutting down. Thankfully he wore himself out before injuring himself and next thing he had booked a tree surgeon to finish the job.

[Arzosah]

Is your brother a regular chainsaw user? One of the more frightening things I have seen was a new neighbour trying to remove a very large apple tree with no thought at all to the weight and position of the branches he was cutting down. Thankfully he wore himself out before injuring himself and next thing he had booked a tree surgeon to finish the job.

That's a jolly good question! I don't quite know, is the honest answer, but I think so. He took down a neighbour's leylandii last year without trouble, and he did the hedging of a two acre site in France about ten years ago, so he's had a fair amount of experience. He'll be able to keep both feet on the floor when doing my laurels, so I'm pretty hopeful nothing terrible will happen.

[Peter]

I did have an electric chainsaw, wife made me get rid of it, said I was to old to use it.

I also had to cut up a decent wooden ladder, but it kept us warm for some chilly evenings.

This was about ten years ago, i’m now in my eighties.........

I’m allowed to use a hand saw but only if my feet stay on the ground

[GeraldTheBonzai]

I have an electric chainsaw, but rarely use it. What I did buy and has proved to be really useful is a battery powered small chainsaw. The bar is about 8 inches and it came with 2 batteries. Neither last for a particularly long time, but its great around the garden. Can easily cut through branches several inches thick.

[itsybitsy]

I have an electric chainsaw, but rarely use it. What I did buy and has proved to be really useful is a battery powered small chainsaw. The bar is about 8 inches and it came with 2 batteries. Neither last for a particularly long time, but its great around the garden. Can easily cut through branches several inches thick.

the battery operated chainsaw sounds very handy - where did you get that one from please?

[GeraldTheBonzai]

I have an electric chainsaw, but rarely use it. What I did buy and has proved to be really useful is a battery powered small chainsaw. The bar is about 8 inches and it came with 2 batteries. Neither last for a particularly long time, but its great around the garden. Can easily cut through branches several inches thick.

the battery operated chainsaw sounds very handy - where did you get that one from please?

Amazon. Look for mini chainsaw. Between £50 and £70. All chineese clones

[Arzosah]

A mini chainsaw that can cut through branches several inches thick sounds fantastic! Bro has just rung me - his chainsaw's broken down (he's doing stuff for the son of his that lives in London), he's ordered chains from Amazon that will be delivered tomorrow, but he's not totally sure they're the right ones.

This is an interesting convo that people have run with: I've always used my manual saw, but especially as time passes, I need to go with powered tools to accomplish my goals.

And I'll still be keeping my feet on the floor.

[Yorkshire Andy]

A mini chainsaw that can cut through branches several inches thick sounds fantastic! Bro has just rung me - his chainsaw's broken down (he's doing stuff for the son of his that lives in London), he's ordered chains from Amazon that will be delivered tomorrow, but he's not totally sure they're the right ones.

This is an interesting convo that people have run with: I've always used my manual saw, but especially as time passes, I need to go with powered tools to accomplish my goals.

And I'll still be keeping my feet on the floor.

I really dont like those one handed pruning chainsaws one slip and well your going to be in a world of pain dad's mate had a fight with a small petrol saw and nearly lost his left hand when it kicked back... That was with 2 hands on the machine that one handed with a lazy hand not doing much is liable to get in the way.. (the reason most hedge cutters not have 2 handles that must be squeezed to energise the blades

20 years in the timber trade gives you a healthy respect for stuff like saws I've dealt with fingers off several times and a very nasty hand injury, place next door doing similar work got a showing on helicopter heros about 10 years ago which the directors wasn't impressed about and our boss wasn't impressed seeing one of our forklift drivers hiding in their yard on BBC one when it aired

[Medusa]

Just ordered a Delta 3 max power bank and will buy the expandable battery in the future. Ecoflow offer 5% off for over 60s in return for your email address and phone number, so input husbands. Not a fan of giving information out but for £55 he can deal with the spam. We already have a Jackery which we use for camping but wanted something different this time. Need to get the shed kitted out with guttering and down spouts, we only have one slimline water butt connected to the garage and need to expand on that and considering whether to get a pre-used food grade IBC rather than several water butts and place it on concrete blocks rather than 2 or 3 water butts. It will happily fit where the old coal bunker lives now, which we no longer use for storing wood. Any thoughts on the IBC please? We can collect one locally for a reasonable cost.