Gardening

Garden fork and a rake that's about it all.

What about the grass? You said that you had grown a lawn from seed how did you cut that?

Oh, shears.

Can you remember what they were like?

I suppose they were like the cheapest of types of shears you could buy today, almost give away price today.

What sort of handles did they have - were they wooden?

Wooden.

Can you remember what they were like? Were they heavy?

Not enough quality in them to be heavy - didn't spend a lot of money.

Nothing like that was available - the only thing I used was, the man next door raced pigeons and I used to have his pigeon droppings. At first I didn't know how to use them and they burnt all the roots off, generated too much heat, then I learned how to persevere and wait for it - and largely that was that, and then later on I used bone meal.

What about pests and disease - were there any chemicals you were able to use?

Earwigs you trap them in the dahlias, I think it's still used today, I haven't grown them for a long time. You put a stick and put a pot on top, a bit of straw inside and go out everyday and squash the earwigs - and the other biggest pest was greenfly.