Devastation in the Veggie Garden

Oh wow MG so sorry for this to happen to you both .

But this could have been worse and both of you werenot in the garden at that point.

Oh Moon Grower what a shame all that work gone to waste the winds here in Bournemouth have been quite strong but nothing like that. Hope you manage to sort it out without to much expense!

I am sorry for the damage to your veg garden. Honestly I would like something similar to happen to my Neighbours Leylandii tree, which is so huge that is blocking the sun to most of my garden. Certainly the tree will fall in my garden but the benefit will greatly exceed the damage. I do not understand why people are allowed to grow these monsters on the boundaries of the small suburban gardens.

Realistically I'm glad it was the veggie garden that got hit not our alpine garden. I 'did' want the tree gone... but not in quite this way!

Sorry about the bother for you MG, but as everyone says, you and Bulba & your neighbours are OK. And your veg patch will be better in the long run with it gone.

Yes in the long term your garden will probably benefit but its still a lot of work at the moment, at least it was the garden that suffered and not any of you or your homes........

Now that I am getting some of the tree out of the way I think that the damage might be less than we originally feared. The potatoes will be OK this early in the season and it does seem to have squashed the onions. It could have been much worse.

Must say you and Bulba are such positive people no sooner the damage and your up and at it. Hope the vegies haven`t suffered to extensively and in the long run your garden will be all the better.

Reality is you just have to roll with the punches Stroller... We could get depressed, go into a blue funk, sulk, moan and generally make ourselves miserable. At the end of the day we would still have a large tree in our veggie garden. I'd rather get on with living accept this has happened and move on. A friend who lives near Stirling is waiting for her husband to get back from England where he was yesterday (and is still not back from due to weather) a large tree came down in their garden and smashed the shed and part of the greenhouse. So we are pretty lucky really. We may have less vegetables than we had planned for but we wont starve and all is well, just thought you'd like to see the resulting mess. Come Thursday B and a friend will hopefully have shifted most of the mess and will take more photos.

Sorry you lost some of your veg patch :-(

We'll live.. all is well :-)

Sorry to hear your news but I am glad you can look on the bright side. At least it is early and you can, perhaps, so some things again.

Well too late for us to sow cabbage seed but if the local nursery still has we will buy and plant... It will all balance out :-)

Oh dear what devastation.....I am so sad for your damage.....

All for the better in the long run, glad nobody was hurt. I know you follow the moon to grow as you have posted some very interesting blogs on the subject, but garden centres are now selling off veg plants, you might be able to replace them I know its not the same but at least you won't waste the season.

Kfusters we will, hopefully, buy some brassicas from a local Nursery. They are unlikely to have reduced their price and why should they have! If you have taken the time to grow the plants then they are worth buying. They are the next best thing to our seedlings having been grown, almost, organically.

Good job no one was hurt and not too much damage
My neighbour ( before i moved) had a big fir tree blown down,it went straight through middle of there house.
Big house big tree big mess
Luckly the lady of the house wasn't in the middle bit of the house and OH was away.
The tree was big 150-200 feet high, the trunk 8-9 feet diameter
I was there for weeks sawing up the tree, when finished i was asked to top the other 2 big one's as well, they didn't want it to happen again

Sorry Mg I obviously forgot to click on add comment. I was feeling you could have done without this but at least that gets rid of the tree for good. Impress on Bob that leylandii are not suitable for gardens. I wish the government would ban them. I think all has now been said and you will know we are all very happy that there were no human casualties.

B. took some more photos yesterday after he had cut up most of the tree. Will put up later today. Yes Bob now knows that large leylandii are not a good idea.

I hope you have a wood burning stove?

We do but leyandii is not even any good for burning :-(

Stack the wood for 2 years and it will burn beautifully. It makes great kindling too so don't get rid of your smaller branches. Used fresh in a fire it will spit.

Not our wood though belongs to neighbour Bob. Remember we don't even grow the veg. in our own garden but in another neighbour's garden.

Maybe you could all have a share since it belongs to one, came down in another and is being cleared by Bb.
What a nice community you live in. We visited a friend from the village who has just been assessed as needing long term care in a home. He was born and brought up in these parts and he was saying how very different the village is now. It was once full of families who worked within 5 miles of home. Now itis populated by commuters who go in to the city to work and then go away in their caravans for the weekend.

Well for now it is all stacked in Bob's garden, which is huge and mostly down to grass as he is not fit. The tree surgeon came this morning and cut up all the really big stuff. And Bulba and Bob barrowed it away. Next step is repair the fence which Bob is organising. We've lost surprisingly little really. A few broad beans, peas, cabbages and leeks.

For my troubles Bob gave us a bottle of champagne!!! Much better than the crappy wood. As far as I was concerned I was just helping my neighbour.

Ah yes, I wasn't going to tell them that! But will be enjoyed and is appreciated... The thing about living in a small village is you all have to pull together, if you don't nothing happens! As an example the winter before last the battery was flat on our car one morning. David (yes I'm giving up on euphemisms I'm Carol by the way) was really sick and I had to deliver some books. Neighbours jump started the car for me.

I can see you two do fit in to village life perfectly. Bobs generosity was a nice surprise for you, no need to be embarrassed about it.

Not embarrassed will probably take down to Edinburgh to our friends whom we stay with for 5 nights to be at Gardening Scotland.

Lovely present, anyway MG. I really like your new piccy - a nice "studio portrait". :-) Looks very good

Yes well... taken in the house as part of a photo shoot for a 'maybe' article! I prefer the ones in the garden but himself is in them :-)

!

Well love... you want to be in my avatar?

Exciting! I hope we can rely on you to tell us all about it when the time is right?
Could you crop the picture you like best so you're in it and Bulbaholic isn't?

Not really we have our heads very close together in all of them.

There's nothing I can say that hasn't already been said, but good wishes for recovery. Just glad it fell away from your house.

Thinking about stacking the wood to get it burn-ready - you could create a wildlife logpile? stacks of logs, kept moist, will encourage insects, which in turn will attract insect-eating birds and other insectivores.

Obviously you wouldn't want this anywhwere near the veggies or flower beds! but if you had a "wild" corner, you might be able to increase or at least encourage local diversity.

And isn't white wood ash supposed to be one of the best things you can add to soil?

Agree with you, Coshad. Most people are too impatient to wait for a proper hedge to grow, and too lazy to keep a fast-growing one in check. Okay, so they grow fast, but when that means cutting back twice or even three times a year ...!

I always avoid anything the books call "vigorous" - I'd rather have a slow-grower - or slower-grower, at leat - besides meaning less maintenance, it's fun to watch it develop in its own time.

It depends on how well you get on with the people next door, but isn't there some redress? I just Googled "ancient lights" and got a Wikipedia entry on "right to light" - but that might only apply to houses, rather than gardens.

If it actually overhangs your boundary ... I also Googled "cutting back overhanging branches" and there's a whole list of sites offering advice and the legal position - though it might be best to double-check, since "it's on the internet" doesn't always make it true!

I remember the old radio series The Law Game, that featured such a case, and they said that if you cut your neighbour's branches you had to put them back over the fence, as they belonged to him and to keep them would be stealing - hmm, wonder if that applies to fallen leaves from a neighbour's tree?

MG....It might seem strange to comment that I really enjoyed your blog but I liked it for the right reasons :) It is upbeat and shows co-operation between neighbours and no whinging.

Pleased to learn the damage isn't severe and I think you deserve that bottle...so enjoy :)

Fran the wood isn't ours it belongs to our neighbour. He and Mr MB have already moved and stacked, the last extremely large trunk pieces (which were not in veggie garden) being cut and moved on Friday. The situation is a slightly different one in that we grow all our veg. in the gardens of two different neighbours. We have no plans to seek redress from Bob & Judy they are extremely upset as it is that this happened. Scott, whose garden it is accepts it was an act of god and Bob is replacing the fencing. So far as we are concerned a) we now have much more light for our veg. and b) no one was hurt and no property was damaged. Had the wind been in a slightly different direction the tree would have smashed another neighbour's workshop/treatment room and possibly killed someone.

Whistonlass, I never see any point in 'crying over spilt milk'. Friends of ours who live near Edinburgh have had several trees or parts of trees come down in the garden over the years, they just sort them out and get on with life.

ah, gotcha.

The "redress" in my comment was for Coshad's light-blocking neighbourly hedge - at least, that's who I meant it for :-).

That's okay Fran.