bramble clearing

I filled my time doing less technical tasks, like preparing the holes for the twenty or so fruit trees that I had on order.  Some were in fairly short grass, so relatively easy, others directly through landscape fabric, so not a problem, though several, for the sake of getting it right first time, were destined to be in the thick of a bramble thicket.

The thicket didn’t look too daunting when I approached it with my metal bladed strimmer.  It cuts through bramble stems like butter and the shredded plant matter creates a thick, woody, hopefully weed suppressant mulch.  Well worth the investment.  Several minutes later the task begun to morph into something larger, half an hour in, the brambles all around me were over head height and taking a whole load of work to cut into pieces.  

I persevered, doing a couple of hours at a time, whilst feeling rough with cold, then as I improved half a day or so at a time.  A good couple of days total work and I now have an impressive warren of tracks and clearings through the bramble thicket.  Several areas of freshly turned, root free soil with piles of compost await the arrival of the trees.