Long Bank Progress Report

After the hard work clearing the first half of the LB extension I absolutely whizzed through the next quarter. The previous work done on this section meant that a hand trowel was sufficient in the main to get the new covering of weeds out. Only one injury sustained - stabbed my finger on a piece of slate. Blood gushing out through the grime but I kept going, completing it by end of play Monday.

I had a day off from the garden on Tuesday. Allan came over in the morning to continue our on-going best-of-25 match. Jean also came over to see the building site. She thinks I am mad extending the long bank but I don't see any other option. I certainly didn't want to keep it as the weed patch that it was. It will also be great fun when I eventually start populating it with my choice of plants :)

Back to it yesterday afternoon. 

Organic gardeners look away now.

I decided to spray the last section with weedkiller again. 

I had bought some Clinic Ace but couldn't find how much to dilute it in the instruction booklet. All the tables were for specific sprayer types/weeds/per hectare large scale agricultural use. Back to google - I found a suggestion of 50-1. Next problem was how to measure it. I did have a garden-use nasty substance measuring cup thing but our resident shed mice had decided to nibble a hole in one corner of it. So I measured out 2 litres of water into a two pint milk bottle and then stuck a label to mark the level. Similarly I  measured 40 ml of water into a small glass jar and marked the level. Voila!

I made up a batch and poured it into my RoundUp sprayer. By this time I decided it was too late to spray but I was ready for today. I was out there straight after the dog walk this morning. I needed it to stay dry for 6 hours and it may be a week or so before I start to see results. I had a few worries around lunch time as it got quite dark but it brightened up again.

So I now have an enforced break from LB7/8 to get on with other jobs. And there is a long list...