The Crumble Garden

Everything in the garden reminds me of food, but never more so than now.

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Stihl RMA 443 TC cordless lawn mower

Lawn mowing season is well and truly here and this year, for reasons we’re all too familiar with, most of us are spending a lot more time in the company of the green stuff than would normally be the case. Having a reliable, quiet, and efficient mower is one of those things that makes the less glamorous aspects of being a garden owner less of a chore, and Stihl’s range of cordless electric machines delivers on all counts. I’ve been putting the RMA 443 TC through its paces.

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Peat free

With growing signs of the environmental damage caused by peat extraction on both a local and global scale, the quality and availability of peat-free growing mediums for both domestic gardeners and professional growers is on the up. At the same time, general awareness around the issue of peat in gardening products remains low. So why’s it taking so long?

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Tea refuser

As a self employed gardener, you quickly learn to avoid two types of client. Firstly, those who evidently believe that paying for your services is discretionary. And secondly, those who never offer you tea.

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Sun catcher

It’s me. I am the sun catcher. I catch the sun. The minute the clouds part and those yearned-for, warming rays illuminate the scene and banish the gloom with the sun’s presence, I’m there. Catching it.

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Wind and smoke

I have an oddly conflicted relationship with the wind. At once stimulating, annoying and frightening, occasionally helpful and sometimes strangely comforting. We might learn that a body of air will move from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure, but that’s hardly an explanation that satisfies our enquiry. Why is the wind, we wonder, and where is it going?

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What must our gardens think?

Five o’clock and it’s still light. Just. This is encouraging. This is... inspiring! If the weather hadn’t been so filthy today, I’d’ve been out there till the dark dropped, beavering away, tidying away, Getting Things Ready. But the thing is, I haven’t been, and the garden waits patiently for me to get back into the swing…

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Pushing through

I’ve been stuck in bed with the lurgy for several days, so getting back out into the garden this weekend has been a tonic. The long running saga of the Elusive Wheelbarrow Inner Tube Puncture having now been drawn to a satisfying resolution…

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