Topic: Buy new tools or use my trusty old ones

[lincsyokel2]

lucky for me the allotments are just a little futher on from my sons school, so I plan on having mornings up there as often as I need, everyday while i'm clearing it i imagine, then housework after lunch.

my hubby is worried about what will happen to our beautifully tended garden though. He's not the green fingured sort.

Before i got a lotty i spent 8 years developing a Song Dynasty period Japanese woodland garden with a Tea House, its practically maintenance free, no lawn for a start..........just cut the hedge once or twice a year.......

[vicki.m]

Sounds Lovely, I've ordered bare root native hedgerow plants for delivery in november to put where I've always grown veg. That should look after itself apart from pruning, it'll take a couple of days to plant though I think.

I have to have a lawn, my son is football mad and if he didn't have a 'pitch' outside he'd be playing in the house.

[betula]

It would never have occurred to me to judge someone by the age of the tools they were using,just seems such an odd concept   ???

[vicki.m]

your probably right betula,  but i'm a born worrier.

[lincsyokel2]

your probably right betula,  but i'm a born worrier.

worrier or warrior ?

[vicki.m]

maybe a bit of both lol

[fireflydigger]

What does it matter what they think of you? If you turn up with new tools because you think they're the right tools, then even if you look like more of a newbie at firs than someone turning up with well-worn tools, the other plotholders will soon see from what you actually do that you're serious about working your plot.

Maybe it would do any judgy plotholders good to see their prejudices against younger generations with new forks, who may have (shock horror!  ;)) seen a TV programme, turned upside down! If the only people who took on allotments were people who knew 100% from day one that they'd stick to it for life, then a lot of people happily working plots today might never have got started. There's nothing wrong with turning up with shiny tools so long as you back it up with the work!

[Robert_Brenchley]

They won't be shiny long if you're serious about the plot! The important thing is to get tools that do what you need without breaking.

[chriscross1966]

Grow something wierd or big at the front of the plot... for me it was Kelsae and Catawissa onions.... with a bit of care Kelsae's get huge (so you become someone who obviously knows how to grow onions) and Catawissa's are the biggest of the tree onions, multiple decks oif topsetting bulbils up to 5 feet tall if well staked..... mad as a box of frogs.... I took on my plot in March, by July I had septugenarians from the far side of what is a big site visiting to look at the onions.....

[melmartinez01]

there's less chance they'll get pinched

[vicki.m]

Thanks all, I'm glad to say my problem has been solved, my father in law, who has had to retire from professional gardening due to ill health has said I can have whatever I want from his tool shed, lucky me the best of both worlds and no cost.