A week or so ago I unboxed a new garden tool from Stihl, which I'm fully expecting to help us tame the leaves in our garden. You can see from the first photo in my conservatory plans post just how many trees we have in our garden (just) and how they're all pretty much bare right now. As you know all those leaves have to go somewhere and I can tell you it's not up, it's most definitely down and along some. We've leaves covering the flower beds, in the slate (much to MOH's disdain) and quite a few have sought solace together in random sheltered spots around the garden. You know the places that you'll twist and turn to get into and then struggle to turn and twist to get out of without dropping the clutch of leaves you've gathered.
Yes exactly. Collecting leaves by hand is often a futile task, and one that kills your back, even more than digging I think.
But leaves are good. Well rotted down leaves are good, so in a year or two's time, the leaves that are creating quiet chaos in our garden will be the stars of the show, providing valuable leaf mould. We've a leaf mould compost bin over on the allotment as well as a smaller bin in our garden, as we gather sack fulls of leaves. And as we'll use most of the leaf mould on the plot, it made sense to "make" leaf mould there, of course the challenge is to get the sacks of leaves over there in the first place, but that's a small logistics matter...
Did you know that the simple black sack is your friend when it comes to leaf mould?
Making leaf mould is one of the few things I use black sacks for, and I buy the cheapest ones I can get hold of. Before I fill it with leaves I take great joy in laying the sacks out on the grass and stabbing them with my garden fork. The leaves need some air, and I tell MOH that it's good for his grass too...
If your leaves are wet then simply fill your sacks and tie the top and leave in a quiet corner of your garden until you find them about the same time next year, when you can give them a look and see how they're doing. Depending on what kind of leaves you have, they may take longer to do their thing, but it won't be long before you've got some fabulous homemade goodness to use in your garden.
But back to my new garden tool
The new tool I've unboxed is a compact cordless blower, hence the prediction for more wind to come at the weekend. Once again it features a 36V Lithium-ion battery and Stihl's quiet technology, which they say on their website means you don't need to wear ear protection. Remembering my visit to their Competence Centre in Kufstein and the work and testing they undertake on their products, I'm looking forward to hearing - or rather not hearing - what they've achieved with this model.
Like the grass trimmer before it, this is easy to manage and designed to be easy to use. There's a couple of other features which I'll be testing out at the weekend, these include the length-adjustable blower tube which can be adjusted for whoever's using it to ensure that the blowing force (now get me) remains at the optimum level to make short work of those leaves and twigs.
The blurb says that everything you need to operate the blower control functions and the safety locking lever are incorporated easily into the handle, which has been designed so it's easy to use for both right or left-handers. I'm sure that for many lefties, that's music to their ears.
* This is a collaborative post, but all views are my own.
