My Garden

Curiousity

Last post 10-07-2009 11:05 AM by bigsusan55. 14 replies.

• 08/07/2009 10:43 PM

  Celtic Heart Location: Wales Joined on: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 63

  Reply | Contact This is me being just plain nosey and curious now.  Do any of you have and still use tools and equipment that belonged to your forebears?  About 70% of my tools were my Father's (when he was still able to garden) and while most are around 20 or so years old, some are much older, but I feel both lucky and priviledged to own, and still use, two different sorts of hoes, a fork, and two rakes that belonged to my great~Grandfather (who was a gardener on a local estate), and were used by both my Grandmother and Mother in turn before arriving in my care.  The only tools that I bought myself are some hand tools, a trowel, hand fork, three pronged gizmo (sorry, don't know the name) and a weeding implement for cracks. One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

• 08/07/2009 11:22 PM

  In reply to

  RogerBee Location: Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire Joined on: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 84

  Reply | Contact If only! Whilst my father and grandfather were both keen gardeners, there tools did not come my way. What did come my way though was something that to me is even more important than the tools they used - and that is seeing them use the tools and helping in the garden/on the allotment as a child so that now, although neither of them have been around for 20 years or more, I have a good 'feel' for using hand tools that has stood me in good stead since I started gardening properly. Cherish and care for the tools that have been passed down to you, they are irreplaceable for their heritage and the craftsmanship with which they were made so will stand you in good stead. But also cherish and nurture the memories of how and when they were used because that will help you garden and choose the best tools you have available to do the job in hand. Apologies if this sounds sentimental but I truly believe that we have much to learn, or rediscover, about craftsmanship and having the patience to learn skills. Far to much is being lost to the whims of a 'throw-away' society. Give it a go - it might just work!

• 09/07/2009 07:08 AM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact The Bogweevil still uses the hoe that belonged to his father, and his father before him - it is branded 'Victory' and I guess dates from about 1920. It is made of excellent steel and hardly wears. Boggy Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 09/07/2009 07:53 AM	In reply to
  Phot's-Moll Location: The sunny South coast. Joined on: 06 Jan 2007 Posts: 3,347	Reply | Contact I use my granny's 'lady's border fork'. It's strong and lightweight and handy for getting into thickly planted areas. I don't know its age, but I know it wasn't new when Granny got it. Don't remember a maker's name, but I'll have a look. Whether you think you can do a thing, or think you cannot, you are right.

• 09/07/2009 09:28 AM

  In reply to

  Celtic Heart Location: Wales Joined on: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 63

  Reply | Contact I don't think the tools I have are bought, I really think they are home made ones, as my ggf was noted for his, shall we say, inventiveness?  I have a lethal can opener made by him that still turns out in dire emergencies!  Roger, I do not think you are being sentimental at all.  I wish with all my heart I had known my ggf and gf, and wish that I had not been so young when my gm had to stop gardening.  Sadly, no notebooks or diaries exist, only vague word of mouth that comes to me now from my mother.  My father was a 'haphazard' gardener, my lineage comes from my mother's side of the family.  I have good tools, and a very green thumb (apparently) but am sadly lacking in the knowledge that makes the difference between a good and a great gardener.  I am a complete novice and on a steep learning curve at the moment, but hoping that the spirits of my forebears will transmit help, information and advice through the tools we share! I know my mother disapproves of my compost bins, for Dacu bach (my ggf) trenched the kitchen waste into the garden, and his garden was apparently second to none in the village. One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

• 09/07/2009 10:03 AM

  In reply to

  miranda Location: Oxfordshire Joined on: 17 Nov 2004 Posts: 2,976

  Reply | Contact I have a rake and an edger of my dad's, both good sturdy tools. Most other things I've bought myself, though a friend gave me a hoe that I especially like and I found a rather fine spade in some woods many years ago that I still use.  I think, Celtic Heart, that if gardening is in your blood, and you do it by instinct, then absorbing the knowledge won't be difficult, but more like remembering something you'd forgotten. That's the way it is for me, anyway.

• 09/07/2009 10:45 AM

  In reply to

  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743

  Reply | Contact I have some old tools a brass syringe from the fifties, but better than this, I walk the very same path as my ggf and my gggm and pa, i use land used by my family, I can walk the footbridge that my great grandfather built across the river here, I go to the park and see the armillary sphere he built, and I walk on the stone flags in the town centre that he laid down when he first came over to England. I stnd in my OH's field and look at the view over the Hill and across the nick of Pendle, knowing that my great grandparents stood in the same place and looked at the same view all those years ago, this is where I belong and it's more special knowing my ancestors were here in the same place.  digger

• 09/07/2009 11:05 AM	In reply to
  RogerBee Location: Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire Joined on: 14 Jan 2009 Posts: 84	Reply | Contact Celtic Heart, it looks like your question could end up being turned into a whole topic on the importance of our heritage in gardening today! Something I think it is important to retain among all the other things going on around us. Thank you for asking the question.     Give it a go - it might just work!

• 09/07/2009 11:15 AM

  In reply to

  miranda Location: Oxfordshire Joined on: 17 Nov 2004 Posts: 2,976

  Reply | Contact Digger, you are so lucky to be able to tell us that! It must be wonderful to set your fork in the soil and know that one of your ancestors stood in the same spot with theirs. Several years ago, me and my twin brother went to look at the farm owned by our ggf, near Durham, and seeing that place set up an intense longing in me to live there myself. We looked into the old cow sheds, where our grandmother had milked the cows - the sheds had been unused for decades and can't have changed much. Outside the farm garden, we stood on the spot where a family portrait was done at the end of the 19th century and it set shivers down my spine.

• 09/07/2009 01:20 PM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact Digger, do you pull up the same ragwort too?   Boggy Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 09/07/2009 03:41 PM

  In reply to

  Charlie Roberts Location: Newcastle Staffordshire Joined on: 10 Apr 2009 Posts: 19

  Reply | Contact As I was growing up we did not have a garden to speak of more or a concrete yard, and although my grandad was a keen gardener he died before i had my own garden and an intrest in gardening so unfortunately all of me tool have been brought from new.  I would have loved to have been able to work in my garden thinking I was using something that belonged to grandad Jack as it would feel like a part of him was helping me, he was a great gardener and won prizes locally for his sweet peas. Charlie x.

• 09/07/2009 05:52 PM	In reply to
  sue1002 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Joined on: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 5,200	Reply | Contact It's nice to read that lots of you have tools that have been handed down.  My family were not much of gardeners so I didn't get any and had to buy new ones. Boggy - I think digger might well do  sue1002

• 09/07/2009 10:15 PM

  In reply to

  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743

  Reply | Contact Ha Ha, Good one Boggy! well I know my family on ggf's side were from newry and clonakilty, I went back to Cork and clonakilty where I spent some of my childhood, etc... Here at home the farmhouse of my Great grandparents is still there but no longer a farm, OH has land that used to belong to the same farm before it was sold and the land developed. I could safely say that I am shovelling the same sh1t that my ggf shovelled, but the ragwort is probably a decendant of their ragwort and so ,Yes I probably do pull the same stuff indeed but the OH does most of that work, I know the view hasn't changed because of ancient photo's I've seen and OH's field is in a conservation area s probably won't change either. From tales I've heard ggf was a skilled stone mason and his work does look impressive, but he also liked his whiskey too much and his OH did most of the livestock husbandry along with their children, ggf did hand me down a liking for the scotch whiskey though, but I don't drink it anymore, sometimes I do stand and stare across the filed at Pendle Hill as the sun goes down behind it, and into the Ribble Valley and I just know ggf did the same thing, (there's nowt else much to do here really, so he must've done it) but it's cool and I know my youngest son will do the same thing and have the same thoughts when I'm dead and gone, or perhaps it's about time someone put a stop to it, and the family looked beyond the lancashire border? digger

• 09/07/2009 10:25 PM	In reply to
  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743	Reply | Contact This is the view from the edge of OH's paddock at the stables, my lottie is in the front of me so you can just see the hedge, then the field across the first on is the grazing as well, the beck and a steep drop is in between the hedge and the field.Pendle hill is directly behind of me from where i took the picture. There is no ragwort in sight!!!! digger

• 10/07/2009 11:05 AM

  In reply to

  bigsusan55 Location: North-West London Joined on: 14 May 2009 Posts: 144

  Reply | Contact We have shears that were my father-in-law's, but otherwise I'm in the contingent that inherited a love of gardening more than the tools, as they were still in use when I bought mine. We do have a cast iron mangle frame, that a friend's father used as the basis for shelving, but OH has made into a seat with wood leftovers.  So, not really a tool, but certainly something that has been used for years by others and now enjoyed by us. Good question! Susan B