Saturday 16 May 2009

Mu-wha-hahahaha!

Death becomes you...


Pretty sinister title and image - and what the hell has this got to do with cider?

Well, we are currently having a battle with the dreaded Japanese Knotweed which was present on our proto-orchard when we took it over, in three large clumps and is busily spreading itself around, even though it is costing us an arm-and-a-leg in weedkiller to try to kill it off... I don't particularly like using lots of weedkiller so we have had to look for alternative methods. The law with what you can and can't do when you have this stuff on "your" land is pretty tough and tight, so we have to act before it spreads onto anyone elses plot.


Reading up on t'interweb, I came across an explanation of how some folks have found injecting weedkiller directly into the fat fleshy stems of Fallopia japonica is a very good method of destroying it and of course, limits both the spread of and contamination caused by the weedkiller. Hence the syringe and hypodermic needle. I'll have to be careful with this though, don't want any accidents...


The needle is actually blunt and we use them at work for applying solvent cements to bond plastics such as PMMA (Acrylic) together.


This will have to wait though, as we are off to catch the train to Nottingham and hence to Chesterfield for the Rail Ale Festival at Barrow Hill. The cider and perry list is very good - but so is the beer list! Decisions, decisions...

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