Six on Saturday – April 21st

They forecast dry sunny weather today, and rain from about 9pm…. well they weren’t overly accurate, it started raining at lunchtime. But now it’s  mid afternoon and the sun’s back out again, so we’re making the most of the dry warm day. Anyhow, welcome to my  Six on Saturday!

  1. I don’t understand why women’s gardening gloves aren’t made to withstand “proper” work in the garden (or on the allotment). This is the only pair I’ve found which are short enough for me to wear (I can get children’s gardening gloves on, but I can’t bend my hand while wearing them!), and still can protect against most things…. but stinging nettles can still get to me through the padded fingers, and these are so filthy the mud now comes through!

    I think these desperately need a clean…. but I want to get a spare pair first, in case they don’t hold up to washing (the last time I tried washing a different style of gardening gloves, the fingers fused together as they dried (out of sunlight, left flat) & were utterly useless!
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  2. You know those broad beans we thought weren’t ever going to grow? They went down to the allotment this week – considering the weather, we had a surprisingly good success rate in them germinating and growing!

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  3. The “compost mystery plant” is a mystery no more – I brought this one home in a pot this week, and it’s definitely a mint plant… it must have broken through into the base of the compost bin, as I’ve been careful to not put any mint into the bin at all!

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  4. A relic from last year (or maybe the year before), these strawberries have been neglected, and left outside the front door. But they look quite healthy (or will do once I give them a bit of water), so they might go back onto the allotment next week.
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  5. And from the healthy, to the …. dead. The Snow White strawberries in the garden were looking quite wet, so we brought two into the porch to try and give them some dry warm weather. Unfortunately, they just didn’t seem to have any inspiration to keep growing – these look pretty dead to me, and the remaining ones in the garden aren’t looking any better.

    I’m hoping the 4 on the allotment will survive, but if not, this was an expensive failed experiment!
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  6. And last but not least, is the Rhino Runna that has made hundreds of trips to the allotment and back… and is suffering as a result! This is what it looked like new (courtesy of Amazon):

    and this is the state of our Rhino Runna

    The rust is taking over, and I’m thinking it’s about time I tried doing something about it, before it just disintegrates into a pile of rusty dust!

So here’s my question for you – how on earth do I tackle this?!
Is it just a case of a wire brush and lots of patience to rub off the remaining paint and rust, then using some kind of primer paint that will stop the rust coming back, before painting it with a top coat?
(as you can guess, we’ve never done any maintenance on it other than pumping up the tyre!)

Don’t forget to check out the Propagator’s Six on Saturday and read through the comments section for more blogs to check out!

4 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – April 21st”

  1. Have a look at Showa Gloves (at Amazon https://amzn.to/2HjEjoZ) which lots of lady gardeners with smaller hands recommend. I’ve also heard good reports of Gold Leaf ladies’ gloves which places like Harrod sell. Strawberries don’t like waterlogged roots and if yours were too wet for too long, you may have lost them, sorry. As for your (t)rusty cart, the issue is not so much the rust but the remaining powder coating. For the rusty bits, seek out some Hammerite direct to rust paint (make sure it says direct to rust on the tin, there are other direct to… versions). It will adhere OK to firm powder coated surfaces BUT often the coating will start to become separated from the metal around the edges of the rusty patches so you need to check carefully that it is sound and remove any coating that isn’t back to bare metal. That’s all the preparation you need to do. Then paint on a coat (or two if needed) of the Hammerite paint. The bucket looks like plastic; it it’s metal I wouldn’t bother to paint it as you’ll scratch the paint off pretty quickly.

    1. Thanks John – I’ve never heard of Showa Gloves before, so I’ll definitely have a look and see if I can find them in a local shop so I can try on a pair.
      Thanks for the tips on how to sort out the rust, and yep, the bucket part is plastic, so I won’t be bothering to do anything with that part!

  2. Yes a stiff wire brush, and you can buy a rust treatment in Halfords. Meant for cars but it’ll work just as well. Then a can of primer spray paint. Job’s a goddun.

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