Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Another clearing/shredding session. Uncovered a Holly tree that was fairly bent over. Staked it up and hopefully it's still green enough to right itself. About 15 feet tall. I reckon one more good clearing/shredding session left before I have enough space to properly tackle the river bank/retaining wall. The amount of stuff I've now posted through what is essentially a very small letter box sized opening on the shredder is nuts.

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Wow, look at all that extra potential lawn you've gained!

Not really gardening but the fire pit was on form last night

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Not sure this could as gardening either, but we took an oak tree down last week and sold the trunk on today to be made into planks, was slightly sketchy dragging it out and loading it...

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The lawn will only go as far as it has been seeded already. The green bum fluff is about 3 weeks growth from seed. The rest will be shed and random working garden type area (compost and shit). From that photo, it's about a third cleared. Round to the right hand side is all the rubble and rubbish that will need to be taken away before the shed can be built. But I'm first going to clear the growth to give me space to dig out and area to be able to build a retaining wall.

looks a bit bendy and knotty for planking. what sort of money do you get for an oak butt like that these days?

when i was tree surgeoning (many years ago obvs) it was not worth the hassle of arranging haulage etc for a whole trunk over the price of firewood unless you had something really special.

It was just over 6m long, so he was thinking worst case he could cut it in half.

Only got £350 for it, but the alternative was cut it up for firewood, and I already have about 100 cubic metres of firewood, so figured I might as well get some money for it...

sounds like a decent morning's work :-)

Also #notgardening finally started work on my garden wall yesterday. Pointing is hard.

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Anybody has successfully protected cherry tree against Rhagoletis cerasi?

The newer grass will be due it's first cut in a couple of weeks. It's kind of half overseeding (as there is existing grass) and half new lawn (as there were large, totally bare patches). The seeded areas are not very consistent. Can I overseed after the first cut or do I just need to long it out? A Google shows plenty of answers about overseeding a regular lawn and when to mow and other things, but I'm failing to find an answer about how to top up overseeded lawns.

I'm looking forward to seeing this (or similar) progress.

Our sidepath (#noatagarden) needs something done to it, and I'll be extending it to the (whenever it is completed) garden office.

I had thought bout Belgian setts, but sandstone setts would be probably better with the (rather rubbish) york-stone-ish patio out the back.

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More not gardening.

I'll (hopefully) soon need to think about shed footings. I will maybe need a 17'x9' slab poured. It will be about 100' from the road but we do have access down the side of the house. Can concrete be pumped that far or would it be better just to get someone with a mixer in to do it on site? I don't have the time nor the inclination to be spending all day mixing and pouring myself. Wondering where the tipping point is in terms of cost for pumped vs labour.

Also, if it's for a shed, is it worth chucking rebar in or would a plain slab be OK? My last shed was only 8'x6' and sat on 9'x7'x6" of unreinforced concrete for 5 years with no issues.

That should be fine, IIRC - 50m & 100m aren't unheard of.

When I did the calculations, the tipping point was a relatively small slab. Smaller, when you factor in how much I couldn't be fucked to mix that much concrete.

With a pour, you may also get someone with the rest of the tools, like the vibrateywand, and a proper floatythings.

@Hovis has recent-ish experience of domestic roasdside pours.

how much I couldn't be fucked to mix that much concrete

This will be a big chunk of the balance. Although, I'd actually love to do it. Getting a full day where I'm not either working or beingabadparentandneglectingmydaughterrememberthistimeispreciousandifyouwasteitdoingthingstoimproveourfamilyhomeyoureabastardyoumonster is another thing. I can clear the area and maybe even shutter in 1 to 2 hour bursts.

the vibrateywand, and a proper floatything

I'm glad you know the technical terms, because I don't.

technical terms

Concrete vibrator, screed, bull float, edge float (I may have googled a bit).

I think the problem with DIY is that you need to finish once you've started, or you end up with janky bits where you have poured onto much drier concrete - You can't leave it overnight, when you realise it's 8pm and you've left your child at nursery again.

Depending if you arrange it yourself or get a builder in, I wouldn't be surprised if a builder just goes with a load of cheap labour and some wheelbarrows...

That size of shed base with a 4" depth of concrete (more than adequate,
no reinforcing needed) would take 3 tons. There is no need for vibrateywhatsits. Presuming the dig is done and shuttering is ready, 2 muppets with a mixer and barrow could comfortably do that in a day.

@Silly_Savage: nice pointing!

Amazing, appreciated as always. I saw the 3ton (or just shy of) estimate on a few calculators, but good to know about the reinforcing delete.

I may be able to convince ms_com that it's something me and a mate could do. Have the mate's better half and offspring round as a distraction and call it socialising.

Paint these sleeper borders with the same stuff as the fence? Something else?

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Paint it all black

For speed of mixing: water first (enough to turn cement into a slurry), half bag of cement, 12 BIG shovels of ballast, add more water as necessary. The bottom of each ton bag will be stonier and need less water. To put it in context, my record is 13 tons mixed in a day. 5 bags cement per ton bag, this should be slightly too much, but saves having to run off for more.

Ensure shuttering is level and measure diagonals to square it up, 4x2 timber is ideal. Start at one end and tamp down to the shuttering with another lump of 4x2 until it spills over the far end, making sure your 4x2 is in contact with the concrete all the way across. If your shuttering is right, your concrete will be.

Pro tip: dig the shuttering in half an inch deep to give a concrete depth of 3 1/2 inch. This is ample and will ensure you don't run out of ballast. Having a bit of ballast left over is less of a pain in the arse than running out!

Excellent advice!

I have a concreting question myself... I am putting a pad down, again the standard 4 inches. It's going where there is an old but knackered cobble path, which leaves me 2 choices for sub base, rip up the cobbles and fill with scalpings (will probably take a lot as the cobbles are prob 6 inhces deep in places) or just lay straight on top of the cobbles (which have been down for 10o years or so)...

Thoughts?

If they've gone nowhere in 100 years they're not about to, go straight over the top! What you could do is remove a couple of lines of cobbles where the shuttering will go and go 3" deep over the remaining cobbles with your concrete. Unless you are storing elephants, 3" of concrete over a solid base would be plenty.

Excellent, its just for one of those large paddling pool things, so weight is spread out.

Will use the digger to ping out a row of cobbles to put the shuttering in, no way I doing that by hand...