Essential tools
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales | 14 comments
Photo: Leaf collectors
Tamar from Starving off The Land wrote an amusing article about the things that you need to have to exist in the city and things that are essential for a simple life in the country.
I was lucky, I inherited a lot of tools from my aunt. Pickaxes, shovels, brooms and a very handy sledge hammer. Beside that we have two hoes, a spade, a fork, grass rakes, a wide gravel rake, a long border rake, a large headed plough tool, a small headed version of the same, a lawn mower, chain saw, hedge trimmer, a strimmer, a lawn edger, long handled shears for edging, hedge cutting shears, topiary shears, hand forks, hand trowels, a lawn mower, long handled loppers, tree loppers, secateurs and hand saws for cutting back trees. Not to mention the power tools and large box of hand tools needed for general cottage maintenance.
I thought that we had everything that we needed until the leaves started to fall.
Raking the leaves with the lawn rakes is easy. Shifting those leaves was troublesome. How on earth did John do it?
Yesterday I popped into the massive garden centre at Long Shelford to pick up the cloches that Danny had bought me for my birthday (we now have plenty of cloches for growing more delicate crops outdoors in the winter). I spotted some leaf collectors for just under a fiver and was delighted with my bargain until I spotted similar ones
But mine are a much more fetching colour and can double as clam shells for a fancy dress party.
Leave a reply
I had a pair of these for Christmas one year from my mother in law – I’d used hers and was praising them so much she bought me a pair of my own. I suggested she do the same for my daughter as they are so useful and such fun! We even took them out to a valley nearby and used them to gather fallen leaves for mulching down to leaf mould for our polytunnel. (Not sure if you’re supposed to do that but it’s only foraging after all – isn’t it?)
I liked the idea of leave collectors but when I look on Amazon it was an extra 4.35 for postage so you got a bargain. Might go for the tarp idea though.
I’m like Tamar, but I use a old, faded bed sheet, rake up the leaves, gather up the corners, and then its into the compost bins. The nice bit about the sheets is when i’m done I can throw them into the washer/dryer and they fold up nice and compact.
I can’t ever seem to get a tarp folded back up once I unfold it, and it always seems to take up 3 times the space it previously occupied….why is that?
What a lovely happy smile! x
Last week I was looking at the growing pile of leaves under trees and suddenly thought about the leaf collectors. Not so sure whether they are going to be useful or not yet as we have had two lots of snow lying (none at the moment though) and yet not all the leaves have come off, not sure if I fancy shovelling snow at the same time as raking leaves
for anyone who does’nt own a pair of these very snazzy leaf collectors we always use a couple of seed trays you acheive the same results but much less fetching!!
Fiona — Does the fact that I don’t even know what some of your tools ARE indicate that I haven’t adjusted to country life? What on earth is a secateur? It sounds like someone who goes around insisting all his wines be dry.
As for leaf collection, here’s our method. We spread a tarp on the ground, rake the leaves onto it, and then pick it up by the corners and dump its contents into the utility trailer. From there, it’s off to the dump, where they do composting on an epic scale.
I think your method is way more stylish.
it is good that they are yellow, and not green or a browny colour as I have seen in shops. what happens if you rake the leaves over the hand things? If like me, you wont find them for 10 minutes as you think the fairies have taken them!
The previous owners of the house left their green leaf collectors behind- I can only assume they had traded up to a gtx pair like yours at their new home as they are BRILLIANT- wondered what they were at first and why they were useful, until I tried them out… No-one in their right mind would abandon leaf collectors!
I wondered what you were up to waving big yellow paws at us!!!
Leaf paws – hey that’s a good name for them. We’ve got a green pair – brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! They get used so often and pick up a huge piles of leaves in one go 🙂
Teamed with our big wide plastic leaf rake they make short work of leaf clearing.
Celia