Today my daughter and I shredded another trailer and a half of sycamore before rain stopped play. I reckon there are about three trailer loads left of what I cut yesterday, but that will have to wait for another time. As will lifting the onions, and planting out some swedes, kale, radish and lettuces. It’s not been a dead loss though as I’ve been in the greenhouse sowing more lettuce, spring onions and beetroot. I’m going to have another go at the “salads in a mushroom tray” thing this winter (though I probably don’t need to as I should be able to use the new greenhouse and polytunnel) and because the red chard didn’t really do that well until getting into early spring, I suspect because it didn’t develop sufficiently before winter really set in, I’ve also sown some seeds for that — last year I didn’t sow it until the end of August. I might sow more in three weeks time and then I can compare how they do.
In the polytunnel we have cherry tomatoes that are just about ready to pick. I’m looking forward to eating some of those this week.
All this shredding has made me think again about buying something more powerful that will handle thicker branches, as there’s stuff left over that’s really too small for firewood. It would be really useful, but on the other hand I can buy a trailer load of woodchip from the local sawmill for less than £25 and in fact Western Power will leave a load for me every few years when they come to cut back the trees near the power lines (and the subcontractors they use are happy to deliver whatever they have if they’re working in the area because otherwise they have to pay to dispose of it).