How do you clean YOUR garden tools?
Bit of a nerdy topic I will fess up to but really I am curious I have watched numerous YouTube videos espousing the virtues of one brand or another of American lube or cleaner but on trying to obtain same here have drawn a virtual blank.
Homebase: No sorry we don’t do anything like that. Me: really, not even WD40?, Homebase: No sorry, don’t think we do that. This followed by 3 tannoys and a heated conversation to someone on a break who didn’t care to come and find out if they infact had stock of WD40.
Wickes fared no better though they did at least know what WD40 was and had sand paper sponges though not wire brushes or WD40 alternatives.
In the end Tesco had WD40 AND a wire brush (good on yah Tesco!)
Gleefully I looked up the lovely Felco lube, but to no avail, Felco UK don’t sell their own product to specially clean their products, apparently! Though they do have rather wonderful instructional videos showing how to dismantle your secateurs to clean them. I won’t be doing that as I know from experience that I will lose a) patience once they are fully dismantled whereupon they will sit for a month or two or so in a bag marked ‘to be fixed’ , b) some vital working part that will render them unusable or c) I will proudly disassemble, clean, sharpen and reassemble them only to find a lone piece still sitting on the table. No, ordinary cleaning, sharpening and oiling will suffice.
I must admit to being somewhat amused by references to putting away my tools in ‘The Fall’ since I finished maintenance work in December which by my calculation in the first month of winter. My tools have lain silently and slightly dirtily in their storage cupboard waiting for their winter servicing. Initially it was simply too wet every time I set out to clean them up it rained and then the festive season was upon me, and this week it has been horizontal rain and wind.
I usually clean tools after working at each clients garden. It’s good hygiene for your garden not to pass potential diseases around and as a professional, well needless to say you can’t be sloppy about this task. I don’t molly coddle them with oiling and pimping until the winter rolls in and then they get a once a year primp which thus far has been limited to sharpening and oiling the metal parts. This year inspired by my research there will be sanding and oiling, or waxing of handles as well.
Secateurs and pruners are an exception as they get sharpened at least 2 or 3 times a year, mostly when they have been hard at work in the big pruning seasons. Lately this has been at the local ironmonger, the treasure trove that is Goldings on Bedford High Street. 2012 though is spelling change for this task as I have dug out an old tool file and am planning on a bit of DIY.
Having secured enough materials to do a fair job of clean and sharpen I am sure by the end on Sunday to be happily applying the Swarfega, with tools gleaming in readiness for a return to use in Feb.
Cleaned and Sharpened, oh and veg oiled
For a live demonstration see below, the Felco lubricant is not available in the UK
How to Sharpen Tools – US Style
And for serious primping see Felco’s how to on maintenance and dismantling
Blanket Weeding
Wandering along the local riverbank at the crack of a sparrows the other morning I noticed, how could I fail to!, the deep blankets of, well, of blanket weed coating the weir and the catchment pond below.
Blanket Weed, or Spirogyra adnate to give it it’s official title, is one of the most prolific aquatic weeds in the U.K. The Americans call it Long String Algae (hence the need for a common latin version so we all know if we’re talking about the same thing!), and long string it is indeed, though blanketing is the end effect (US/UK diplomatics, we’re both right 
). It is not a plant but a filamentous algae.
Even the best places get blanket weed problems
What makes it so prevalent this year? well it thrives in good light – we’ve have had plenty of that since March this year; warmth – plenty of that too; shallow and running water also appeal, so ponds and weirs are a perfect spawning ground. In addition to all this photosynthetic growth there is the potential for extra growth with the addition of plenty of nitrogen – so dead leaves, fish poo (a particular favorite, nitrates dissolved in ammonia !!), agricultural or residential run off. 2011 is a good year if your a Spirogya algae.
Spirogya adnate is one of those things that doesn’t know when to quit, it is a super predator that has a very rapid uptake of minerals and nutrients from it’s environment, which can be useful to a point, but then it gets cocky and takes the joint over, starving other plants, blocking light and potentially killing off fish (due to light/nutrient/space deprivation rather than Triffid like behaviour) it becomes a menace. The bad news is it propagates itself by spreading spores and when yanking blanket weed out of a pond or pool or weir guess what is most often released? you got it, spores galore.
Enlisting chemical warfare IS still allowed in the UK though banned in the USA, which kind of tells you something about the results of using them if the USA have banned them! There are several ecological treatments which introduce competitors into the watery locale, some eat blanket weed for supper, go Zooplankton, some compete for the same nutrients, go marginals (e.g. Caltha palustris, Butomus umbellatus) and reeds (e.g. Typha minima, Phragmites australis).
But in the end it is not going away as spores can live dormant for many years and spark into action one fine season (2011?!) and they can be transported into your ‘clean’ pond on the feet or beak or posterior of visiting wildlife.
Personally I’m an ecological voter on this front. Helping the balance of nature, and regular bouts of watery weeding seem like a good strategy!
Like this:
Flickr Photos
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