Tractor Tuesday - Walze

With a simple "r" on the end, you can turn a German roller into a Waltz (Walzer). The sun returning today also lifted my spirits. Bliper Angelique, who would I am sure love to do some waltzing, fox-trotting or even a twist or jive, diagnosed me a few years ago as being "bad weather sick". I think she was right.

Good news this afternoon when the DIY store in Memmingen phoned to say our replacement garden tractor has arrived, they have put it all together, filled it up & it works great. The guy who has dealt with this miserable issue was however very keen that we picked it up when he was back on duty on Thursday so that he could give us a personal training session. As Angie was away when the call came and it is her company vehicle, I agreed although personally, I would have picked it up today. I can't think what he wants to teach us about but is a nice thought.

Quite angry about the whole affair, it's not the fault of the local store employees but the manufacturer, Husqvarna. But at least the bees and bugs in our garden have had a field day this year - man-size nettles & thistles. Farmers in Bavaria protesting about the Bio-diversity laws now taking effect, keep saying why should they do more for the environment when increasingly people are covering their gardens with stones and gravel to cut down on work. Well nobody can use that one against us.

Out for the evening walk and blocked by one of the village farmers taking one of the two communal parish rollers for an outing. Surprised me a little as nowadays they are seldom used even for the traditional spring clean work on the grass meadows after raking the winter molehills flat.

Watched from a distance as he then went on to create a dust storm but I simply couldn't work out what he was doing. Just as we finished the walk, so did he return the roller and not being overly curious, I drove to the are where the dust had come from. Turns out a field had just been combine-harvested, I suspect winter barley, and it looks as though he was simply flattening/breaking the stubble.

The days of burning off stubble fields I think ended in the 70s/80s and I believe deep ploughing which was then used, is also out of fashion due to the negative impact on soil organisms and is being replaced by shallow ploughing/harrowing. So I guess the rolling helps to break it all down.

In my bible RHS Wisley vegetable gardening handbook, deep digging the plot in the autumn to allow winter frosts to break down the soil into fine crumb was the rule. Sadly I have to say, I have totally abandoned my plot this year. I claim the docks, nettles, thistles etc are part of my natural garden concept!

For the record, the third silage cut was done on the field next to our house. Looks like 2019 is going to be as good as 2018 where frequent  nightly thunderstorms ensured we didn't suffer the drought but had the good daytime weather